


The World is Too Heavy

by siribear



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game), The Walking Dead (Video Game), The Walking Dead (Video Games), every time i turn around there's a new twdg tag
Genre: Alternate Canon, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-15
Updated: 2016-10-07
Packaged: 2018-02-09 01:01:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 35
Words: 40,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1962999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siribear/pseuds/siribear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben, with Kenny's help, survives the alley in Savannah, though walkers separate them soon after. Still injured, he meets up with Omid, Christa, and Clementine outside Savannah and stays with them thereafter. Touches on the two year gap, kicks off in Season 2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. All That Remains

Ben waits in that field just outside Savannah, surrounded by nothing but empty plain. In the distance, all he can see is the outlines of buildings, the bell tower standing tall above the rest. He presses a hand hard against his stomach like Kenny told him, ignoring the stickiness of his own blood between his fingers and the pain when he does so.

Somehow they had found a building for a moment of shelter, a moment long enough for Kenny to tear into the bed sheets and drapes he could find, anything to make the bleeding stop.

Ben thinks he must have passed out at some point, because he remembers Kenny pulling the fabric tight, and then he remembers stumbling behind Kenny, walkers at their heels. Kenny looked… scary. Terrifying. Covered in Ben’s blood and always yelling something - encouragement, maybe - as they scrambled their way out of Savannah.

But they had gotten separated. A wrong turn, another alley, and Kenny had shoved him toward the exit while Kenny kept yelling at the walkers, holding them back long enough for Ben to hobble out. His vision had gone black around the edges, but Ben pushed forward until Savannah was far behind him.

So he waits in that field like Kenny told him. ‘Look for Lee and Clementine.’ And Ben does, constantly waiting for the shadow of a man and a little girl coming over a hill for him. He doesn’t know how long it’s been since he fell, how much time he lost wandering through Savannah alone, but he waits anyway. For the last two people in the world that still want him alive, because the third had given up his life for him.

Omid and Christa are the ones that find him, and Omid somehow manages to crack a joke at Ben’s state. He laughs, even if it hurts.

They find Clementine, later, a gun in her shaking hand, and Ben holds her as she tells him Lee is dead because of her.

Ben understands having someone’s blood on his hands, even as they’re coated in his own. He wipes the blood off on his jeans, and Clementine takes his hand as they follow Omid and Christa away from Savannah.

-

They make their way north slowly, and Ben’s untreated injury helps little. He suffers through the night, body wracked with shivers and shakes and nightmares. Even Omid looks somber the next morning, barely able to look Ben in the eye, especially every time Clementine takes his hand. No one mentions it, but Ben’s sure he’s going to die this time. He tries his best to keep up with the group, determined not to hold them back. Not again.

It’s a strange blessing when he watches Clementine run up to Omid and Christa after she finishes scouting out a new building. The two of them practically carry him into the building in their haste, and once he’s inside he sees why.

There are cabinets filled with medicine and supplies, and it’s like the station wagon all over again. Ben wants to reference it in jest, but Omid and Christa weren’t there and Clementine hadn’t been in favor of them stealing in the first place. But now she rummages through the bags, finding the items Christa calls out to her.

When the needle and thread hit the table they laid him out on, Ben desperately wills himself to pass out again. Christa tells him to keep calm, to try his best not to make too much noise, and it’s all he can do not to let out a startled whine just when she removes the blood soaked bed sheet wrapped tight around his stomach.

He grips the sides of the table as hard as he can and closes his eyes just as much. But the moment the needle hits his skin he tries to bolt upward, only for a pair of hands to push him back down.

"Man, you're like our cat when we try to give him a bath. Try to relax, okay? Christa will fix you right up."

"I'm going to  _try_." Punctuated by another sharp pinch in his stomach.

"Well, at least I've got the bedside manner."

Ben grits his teeth and chances a look to his right. Clementine’s hands are balled into fists held close against her mouth, and her eyes are locked on Christa’s hands slowly sewing him back together. When she notices him staring at her, she rushes to his side.

"I'll be all right," he tells her, as if they've never heard it before, like it's never gone the exact opposite.

She nods resolutely, mouth set in a hard line, and she places her small hands over one of his. "You  _will_. Christa will fix you."

He lets himself lean back, and counts the seconds until everything stops hurting so much.

He wakes up the next morning feeling noticeably  _less_  like he’s about to die, more like he’s been run over by that train. But still, he’ll take the soreness over Clementine having to see another person die in front of her.

Walking, however, still presents a problem. Putting weight on his legs and actually having them carry him forward keeps them at a snail’s pace, and when Omid tries to offer his shoulder they stop almost instantly. Ben tries not to tease Omid about being too short (he has to bend forward to actually lean on Omid’s shoulder, which stresses his wound), but Omid beats him to it.

Clementine finds a long branch for him to lean on and, considering it gets them moving, it’s better than nothing. She stays in the back and keeps step with him; even injured, his strides are still longer than hers.

"Lee's dad used to have a cane, too,' Clementine says. "I think it makes you look pretty cool.'

The group can only a manage a slow pace with him there, but still Ben’s spirits rise. Even if he suddenly feels like he needs to step into shoes too big for him to fill.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ghosts and thieving little girls. some language here - bad words.

The four of them settle into a routine eventually, and Ben tries to take on more of their daily chores as his stomach heals. Before, Christa and Omid take on the responsibility of finding food and wood for the fire while Ben and Clementine set up what little they had for camp. But as Christa’s pregnancy advances, Omid becomes more and more protective.

Once, he attempts to get her to stay behind in camp while he ventures out to get supplies, and Ben and Clementine sit frozen in the background, waiting for Christa’s response. All she does, though, is raise an eyebrow at him, shoulder her rifle, and head off into the woods. Ben and Clementine try to keep their laughs quiet enough so Omid doesn't hear.

It reminds Ben of his parents, back when his mom was pregnant with his little sister. His dad would always try to shoulder every responsibility and, up until the last week of his mom’s pregnancy, it never worked. Ben always got caught in the middle of it somehow, his dad asking him for back up, usually, but Ben knew better.

Though, Omid calms down once Ben regains the ability to bend down without hurting himself. He and Ben take trips into the forest and buildings for supplies, then, and Christa takes the opportunity to relax.

In the time that Ben couldn’t go out, however, he and Clem would tell stories to pass the time until Christa and Omid returned. Unfortunately, they were mostly ghost stories, as Ben quickly ran out of old TV show plots to retell (Clementine got bored of those even quicker). Bad enough that he had to spend the night worried about walkers, but ghosts of wailing children in the woods?

What kind of books did Clementine even read before all this started?

After the first night of ghost stories, Ben looks so pale in the morning that Christa and Omid worry his wound has become infected. When Clementine happily informs them that she and Ben had been telling ghost stories, Christa rolls her eyes and Omid’s light up mischievously.

Which, of course, means he joins in on the storytelling. Ben spends most nights covering his ears while Omid and Clementine make obnoxious ghost noises over him.

And he is  _incredibly_ relieved when they find the gas station. Anything to get out of the woods, even if there’s little supplies left there and, for whatever reason, walkers chained up in the back.

"Looks scary, huh? All abandoned like that," Omid says as they get closer.

"Ooh. Very spooky," Clementine agrees, grinning.

"Enough, you two. The last thing we need is for you two to get complacent," Christa chastises them. They quiet immediately, but once Christa passes in front of them, Ben catches them grinning at each other in the corner of his eye.

Omid points them toward the girl’s bathroom. "You two should get cleaned up. And keep an eye on your things; it’s probably not clean in there."

He isn’t kidding; Ben and Clementine find that much out within minutes of walking inside. Blood smears the walls and the floor of the stalls, and Ben doesn’t want to entertain the idea of what happened in there.

"Water doesn't work," Clementine says, pulling at the sink knobs.

Ben shrugs. "Maybe you should ask your ghost friends to turn it back on for you."

He leans back against a sink while Clementine daubs a cloth, wet from her water bottle, against her face. Even when sleeping on their tarp-for-beds, Clementine somehow manages to get dirt on her face. A kid thing, he guesses, considering his little sister always managed to get her face dirty no matter where they went. But his sister is probably dead, and Clementine is far too young for this, so he makes himself forget.

Clementine’s yelp startles him, and he almost loses purchase with his stick-cane trying to stand himself up. "Everything all right?"

"Yeah, I just dropped my water bottle. I'll go get it."'

"Be careful. Try not to touch whatever it rolls into, okay?"

"Got it."

Ben edges himself closer to Clementine’s backpack, and her gun, just in case. A torn picture sticks out of the pack, and when he leans closer he sees that it’s Lee.

Before he can pull the picture out, he notices the bathroom door closing in the mirror and a girl creeping up behind him. She looks up and, when their reflections make eye contact, she quickly lunges for Clementine’s gun next to him.

She doesn’t expect his stick-cane to come crashing down on her wrist, and he doesn’t expect the balance he suddenly loses from doing it. He manages to push her backward before slamming face first into the wall, and by then Clementine takes her gun from the sink and points it at the other girl.

"Whoa, hold up. I'm - I'm just hungry, let's talk about this," the girl says, holding her arms up in surrender.

"You should leave," Ben says. If she hadn't tried to grab the gun, he might have been a little more sympathetic; he knows what it's like to need help from strangers.

"Fuck you, grandpa, no one's talking to you." She turns toward Clementine. "Come on, little fish. I just need some help, how about it?"

Clementine jabs her pistol forward in response. "Ben said go."

The girl’s face turns sour. "You won’t shoot me. I bet you don’t even know how to pull the trigger. You ever kill someone before?"

Ben steps forward. "Just go. You’re not getting anything from us."

The girl finally turns around, hands still in the air, and allows Ben and Clementine lead her out of the bathroom. "Fine, whatever. You’ll die soon, and I’ll just take your stuff then."

Ben doesn’t respond; he waits until he can’t see her anymore as she runs off back the way they came, into the woods. Clementine finally lowers her gun, and Ben carefully takes it out of her hand. "I've killed people before," she says softly.

Ben kneels next to her as best as he can. "Don't listen to her. You’re not a bad person, Clementine," he says.  _Not like me_. She wraps her arms around his neck just as Omid and Christa exit the other bathroom.

"Everything all right?" Christa asks.

"Some girl came in, and she tried to take our stuff. Clementine and I scared her off, though."

Clementine pulls away to smile brightly at Christa. "Ben and I are a good team!"

Omid helps Ben to his feet with a, "Nice job." He looks over at Christa. "Told you they can handle themselves."

Though she crosses her arms, Christa’s smiling. "Yeah, okay. That means we can’t stay here for the night, though. Best we put as much distance between her and us as we can."

Ben groans. "More woods?"

"More woods." Christa nods.

"More ghost stories?"

"More ghost stories!" Clementine practically bounces in place.

Ben slumps forward, defeated. Clementine takes his arm, pulling him along as they continue heading north, leaving the gas station and, hopefully, the girl behind. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> implied child death. skippable, if you're uncomfortable. happy trailer day.

Christa and Omid had picked out a name, after weeks of them going back and forth. Omid never backed down from Omid Jr. or Christa for names (Ben still doesn’t know where he got Genevive) but Christa never entertained him. Except, she did get a little frustrated when Ben and Clementine began throwing out names, each one more ridiculous than the last.

However, like a lot of things in the world now, the names don't matter in the end. Even after they hole themselves up in a safe building, find all the supplies they need for the delivery, and do their best - it doesn't matter.

Clementine cries all night. Christa and Omid head up to a room and don't come out.

Ben feels what little hope he has left begin to fall away.

Christa had been quiet before, preferring to listen to Clementine and Omid tell stories to each other, so other than her stern tone when she  _does_ speak, Ben only barely notices a difference. Ben has never seen Omid upset; even after Clementine told everyone what happened in Lee’s last moments, he pulled out a smile and cheered everyone up. It didn’t stop anyone from crying, but it helped. Now he’s just as silent as Christa, only speaking to make sure Ben and Clementine are keeping up.

Looking at Christa and Omid and their hands clenched tight in each other’s makes his chest tighten. He would rather fall off that balcony again than relive this - than make them have to go through this in the first place.

Christa and Omid go out together more, instead of everyone taking turns to gather food and supplies. This leaves him and Clementine together in camp again, and Ben thinks she looks more defeated now than she had even right after Savannah.

"Hey, Clem?" She stops rummaging around in her pack to look up at him. "How old are you now?"

She stares at the fire a moment, to think. "Ten."

"Oh." Hadn't she been eight when he met her? "Well, happy belated birthday."

It only makes her look like she’s going to cry. He almost does, in the end, for a child who never got to see one.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> season 2!

"Clem," Ben says, cutting through the silence left by Christa and Omid leaving again. Though it's been months and the group has settled back into their old routines, the two of them leaving together reminds them of what they've lost. "Come here for a second."

She tosses a large log on the fire and walks over to him. Ben uses his stick-cane, gnarled from walker bites and splattered with dried walker blood, to lift himself off the log he was sitting on. Clementine doesn’t say a word, just waits as he stands at her back. He places his hand slightly above her head and holds it in the same position as he walks back around in front of her.

"Check it out, you grew a bit."

Her eyes widen, just slightly. Some time ago, she had complained that she wasn’t growing, that she wouldn’t grow, that she’d stay shorter than Omid forever. Christa had actually chimed in, saying there’s no way she’d stay  _that_ short.

"I'm still not as tall as Omid," she says.

"You're eleven and almost his height already, though. You'll hit your growth spurt in a few years and be taller than me, watch."

She frowns. "If I make it that long."

He sighs before he can stop himself, but voices from the forest interrupt whatever he wants to say. He and Clementine tense when they hear the voices increase in volume, and they both look around them, trying to find the source.

"That doesn't sound like Omid," Clementine whispers.

It doesn’t. But whoever it is sounds angry, and he wants to suggest that they keep quiet, hoping whoever it is passes around them, until he definitely hears Christa.

Her voice is clear, somewhere to their left, and when they edge themselves near the trees they find Omid and Christa confronted by three men. Ben doesn’t recognize any of them, but whoever they are, they’ve got guns pointed at his friends.

"On the count of three, Clem." He grabs two rocks near his feet and hands one to her. "One, two - "

On three they throw, hitting their targets, and yell for Omid and Christa to run as they do the same.

He loses sight of Clementine in the scramble, and when he doubles back around after he hears one of the men shout, all he finds is one of the bandits being eaten by walkers. No Clementine but a cliff and a river, so Ben begins running along the bank trying to find her.

He doesn’t sleep that night, for fear of walkers, and he thinks he walks himself in circles, because there’s the dead bandit  _again_. When morning breaks, he crosses the river, holding on to rocks as he wades through the rushing current, and hopes he doesn’t find Clementine dead in the water.

Lee’s picture finds him on the riverbank instead. He pockets it and dries it out as he climbs up the hill from the shore.

And he gets a crossbow pointed at his head for his troubles when he runs into two more guys as he wanders further into the woods. "I don’t even  _know_ this Carver guy, all right? I’m just looking for my friend."

"Who's your friend?" asks the one with the crossbow.

"A little girl. About eleven, now. Uh - about this high," he slowly lowers his hand to where he measured Clementine last night. "Wears a hat. Pigtails?"

The guy with the machete shrugs. "Haven't seen her. You’re saying you and an eleven year old have been out here all by yourselves?"

" _N_ _o_. We were with two others, but bandits attacked us last night and we got separated. I  _need_ to find her. Please, just let me go," Ben says desperately.

The guy with the crossbow shoulders it and introduces himself as Pete. "Kid doesn’t look like he’s lying to me. And if there’s a little girl lost in these woods, we can’t leave her out there."

The other - Luke, he says - nods. "Let’s go find your friend, then. If you’re telling the truth."

"I am," he says, and the three of them head in search of Clementine.

They follow a group of walkers congregating toward one area, and it’s there they save Clementine from a walker on top of her. Luke quickly picks her up, and Ben runs right next to him as they escape, never taking his eyes off Clementine. She's barely conscious, but the tension leaves her shoulders when she spots him next to her.

"I'm so glad we found you," Ben sighs when they're far enough away from the walkers.

"Yeah, kid. Gave your friend here quite the scare here when we saw that lurker on you. Figured you might've been -  _fuck_." Luke drops Clementine in a rush, and Ben barely stops her from falling hard to the ground.

"What's your  _problem_?" Ben yells, propping Clementine up against his knee. Her head lolls slightly, but she still manages to glare at Luke.

"My _problem_ is she’s  _bit_."

 _She can't be_. At that, Ben looks down to see Clementine’s blood soaked sleeve. The same arm they saw her using to keep the walker away. She argues that it was a dog, and when Pete lifts her sleeve, Ben has to look away. He's grateful for Pete being so trusting, because he can’t make himself look back at the long gash on Clementine’s arm to actually verify that it  actually is a dog bite. Still, he vouches for her, little that it does.

"She knows the dangers of a bite. She wouldn't lie about it."

Pete mentions Carlos, a doctor, can take a better look at it, just to be sure. Ben carries her to the cabin where Luke, Pete and their group are staying, hopeful that Carlos can help her. She passes out halfway there, and thankfully misses the rest of the people at the cabin arguing whether or not to kill her right there when they reach it.

"It's  _just_ a dog bite," he says to a guy with the gun, probably only a few years older than him. Nick, according to what the woman calls him, but Ben’s too riled to care. "Back off."

"That's what you'll say until she comes back and bites one of us."

Clementine stirs next to him, and he pulls her toward him just in time for Nick to barely miss shooting her in the face. Thankfully, Pete takes the gun, and Luke and the doctor come running out of the cabin soon after.

It doesn’t take long for Ben to think Carlos is a  _crap_ doctor; he advocates locking Clementine in the shed, declaring it's "too hard to tell" if it's not a walker bite. Ben offers to stay in the shed with her, but he’s quickly overruled.

"It's a dog bite," he says again, as Carlos shepherds him into the cabin. "And if she dies tonight because she doesn't get help, it's _your_ fault."


	5. Chapter 5

"How do we know this kid isn't with Carver? Luke, you guys just brought him here," Nick argues, arms crossed.

Ben lifts his head from his hands, propped up as he sits at the table in the kitchen. They’ve been at this for a few minutes now, this back and forth wondering if he and Clementine work for whoever Carver is, rather than ask Ben himself. And every moment they spend arguing over it is a moment Clementine is still locked up in that shed, alone and bleeding out.

"I'm  _not_  with Carver," Ben groans. "I don’t know who the hell Carver is, and I don’t care. I just want Clementine to get help so we can leave."

"Sorry, kid. You know we can't let you go just yet." Luke offers him a sympathetic shrug, but Ben isn't interested.

"My name's Ben. We were with two people before this, a woman named Christa and a guy named Omid, and that's it. No Carver, no - whoever else you guys are so scared of. I already told you we got separated, what else do you want from me?"

Nick turns on him again. "Separated, huh?"

Ben sighs. "Yeah. Bandits attacked our camp, like I told Luke."

"Has it always been just you four?" Luke asks.

Ben crosses his arms. "We were with a larger group - about two years ago. We - we lost some people heading to Savannah, and the others  _in_  Savannah, looking for a stupid boat." Most of the anger drains out of him as he recalls them all. "I thought I was going to die there." Eaten in some alley, probably forgotten.

Luke winces. "How?"

When Ben stands, Nick starts to reach for his rifle but Luke stops him. "I fell from a balcony and got impaled." Ben lifts the hem of his shirt, showing the puckered skin and the scar that never healed quite right. "And then I got separated from the guy that saved me."

"Shit," Nick hisses, turning away.

"Do you believe me yet?" Ben asks, lowering his shirt. "Because I haven't lied to you. And Clementine and I have known each other long enough that we're not going to lie to each other, either. Not about bites." He pauses, watching Nick and Luke share a look. "I can't let her die."

Luke narrows his eyes at Nick until Nick finally calls out for Pete. Everyone gathers in the main room of the cabin before finally heading outside. Ben pushes ahead of the group, almost jogging down to the shed while the everyone else follows reluctantly.

When he hears a loud cry come from inside the shed, Ben runs faster, Nick and Luke at his heels. "Open the door!" Ben yells over the thumps and shouts inside the shed and prays Clementine is okay.

She is, but they open the door to her finishing off a walker pinned to the wall by a rake and a spike, and Ben rushes toward her before anyone can stop him. He turns her around slowly, carefully lowering the hammer in her arm, and kneels next to her as he waits for her breathing to even out. 

"You sewed up your arm all by yourself?" Ben asks quietly, drawing her attention away from the others outside the shed, already accusing her of stealing supplies.

Clementine nods, holding the arm in question. "I paid attention when Christa sewed you up, and when... we had to help Christa." She frowns. "It’s harder doing it alone."

_A lot of things are, Clem_ , he wants to say, but pulls her into a hug instead. "I’m going to make sure you never have to do something like that alone again, okay? I’m sorry I couldn’t get to you sooner."

Clementine turns to glare at the others. "They were the ones who left me out here to die." She holds up her injured arm at them. "And I’m  _still_  not bitten. No thanks to you."

Ben stands, heart heavy, and watches everyone’s faces fall. Part of him thinks they deserve it, another wonders what happened to make them so cautious, and he tells himself he shouldn’t care. If he does, it’ll just hurt more when they die.

"She'll be okay, right?" Ben asks from his seat at the kitchen table. Carlos only finished bandaging Clementine's wound a minute ago, but he continues to squeeze her arm and both of them look to be having their own silent conversation.

"It's not a lurker bite?" Luke looks nervously between Nick and Carlos, the former not having taken his eye off Clementine once.

Ben doesn’t bother arguing, not again, and simply puts his head in his hands and tries not to fidget while they wait for Carlos’s assessment. He isn’t surprised when Carlos shakes his head, but he still sighs in relief.

Carlos places the back of his hand against Clementine’s forehead. "She doesn’t have a fever, and she isn’t showing any other symptoms. She wasn’t bitten - not by a lurker, at least."

Ben scoffs. "Didn't stop you from putting her in a shed," he mumbles. Nick takes one look at him before storming out of the kitchen, and Luke follows him soon after.

He stands to inspect Clementine’s arm himself, listening as Carlos accuses Clementine of manipulating his daughter. Ben crosses his arms and waits until Carlos is finished to ask him to clarify.

"How old is she?"

"She's only fifteen. And she doesn't need to know how truly awful things are out there." With that, Carlos leaves, and Ben sighs.

Only fifteen means she’s two years younger than he was when this all  _started_. He can only imagine what it’s been like, the kind of things she’s seen - the things she  _and_ Clementine have seen, for being so young.

_And yet they’ve handled it all better than me_.

Before he can wallow further, Luke and Nick reenter the kitchen; Luke sets down two bowls of oatmeal on the table, and Ben and Clementine eagerly sit down to eat.

Ben stills when Nick apologizes, to both of them, for his actions. And his shoulders slump further when Luke mentions Nick’s mom.

"You were just protecting your friends," Clementine says and continues eating.

Luke and Nick stare at him, waiting for him to say something. Nick’s older, but Ben still feels like he’s staring at himself, two years ago. He left a little girl in the middle of a walker horde for less, after all.

"Yeah," he says finally. "I understand."

The tension in the room dissipates slightly, and Nick leaves to head for bed. Ben, having stayed up all last night searching for Clementine, leaves the kitchen as well, sure Clementine is safe with Luke, at least.

He catches Nick on the stairs. "Hey, man. I’m - I’m really sorry about your mom."

Nick frowns, and Ben feels his chest tighten with guilt for bringing it up again. "Thanks," is all he says before continuing to his room.

Ben settles himself on one of the couches, and his legs hang over the arm when the lies down. He covers his eyes with his arm and tries not to think about what happened to Nick’s mom or what possibly happened to his own.


	6. Chapter 6

In the morning, Ben convinces Clementine to stay behind while he searches for Omid and Christa alone. Mostly alone, at least, since Nick and Luke offer to help to make up for last night. Luke leads them back to where they found Clementine in the first place, and the three of them carefully move around the new group of walkers that have moved in to the area.

Through the trees, Ben spots a small campsite, and at his insistence they investigate. But the camp is mostly empty, no sign of Omid and Christa anywhere. Instead they find the dog.

"Poor kid," Nick says when they leave the camp behind them. Obviously they believe Clementine now, but Luke looks even more disturbed. "He's got a thing about dogs," Nick explains. Luke walks in front of them, muttering to himself, and Ben rolls his eyes, wondering exactly what kind of people he's got himself wandering the forest with.

"So what happened to your family?" Nick asks when they near the river. Ben had suggested they check their old camp, just in case Christa and Omid doubled back. "Luke told me what happened to Clementine's."

Ben freezes for only a second and attempts to turn it into a one shouldered shrug. "Not sure." He lowers himself to the bank of the river and holds his arms out to keep himself balanced. "For all I know they could still be alive. Or worse."

"And that's how you found yourself with Clementine's group?"

_Clementine’s group_ , Ben repeats to himself.  _Because Lee isn’t around anymore_. "My - my friend got eaten in the forest, right after they found us. My band director got his foot stuck in a bear trap, and he died from blood loss after Lee cut it off. Didn’t really have anyone else after that."

Nick doesn’t respond to that, and the three of them wade through the river in silence. Once they get to the other side, Luke’s the one who speaks up. "Band, huh? I told Nick we should start one of those. Didn’t go so well."

"Yeah, Pete kept coming into the garage, yelling at us to keep it down." Nick laughs. "Neither of us knew how to play an instrument."

The corner of Ben’s lip curls into a smile at his old band memories.

Luke cuts through the small group of walkers around the bandit’s dead body, Ben pointing out that he was one of the ones who ambushed them. Nick shoulders the bloody backpack he had on him. "If he didn't want to get looted, then he shouldn’t have attacked you guys," Nick says when Ben gives him a questioning look.

They come across the old campsite soon after, but Christa and Omid are nowhere to be found. Even the weasel is still stuck over the burnt out campfire, though it’s black and charred, now. Luke turns up his nose. "You guys were actually going to eat that?"

"It's a lot more appetizing when you're starving." _Hopefully they found something to eat_ , he thinks. Ben gets down on his knees next to the fire pit and removes one of the smaller, more jagged rocks. He gets halfway through one letter before Luke stops him.

"What're you doing?"

"Writing a message to Christa and Omid, so they know where to find us. Just in case they come back around here, like we did."

Nick and Luke trade agreements of it being too dangerous. "What if Carver sees it? It’ll lead him right to us."

"I'll sign it  _Ben_ , then, it’s not like he knows who I am. I’m not part of your group, remember?"

"Well, you're with us now," Nick says. "It ain't safe if he finds you, anyway."

Luke nods. "Sorry, Ben, your friends aren’t here. But we’re not gonna stop looking, promise."

Ben sighs and drops the rock. "Fine," he says, standing. "Guess we should get back to Clementine with the bad news."

—*

"You ever gone fishing, Clementine?" Alvin asks, hooking his fishing pole. After Ben, Luke, and Nick left, Carlos had pointed out someone else had to get dinner for the night. Alvin volunteered to go fishing, and Clementine found herself dragged on the trip, along with Sarah and Rebecca. Carlos and Pete stayed behind to mind the cabin.

"Once or twice, with my dad," she says, watching. "We never caught much, though."

Alvin smiles. "Well, I’m going to teach my kid how to fish. And right now - " he lifts himself up and walks forward to stand ankle deep in the river " - we’re going to catch enough fish for everyone."

Clementine stares at him with interest, at least for a little while. Sarah moves to sit next to her, and they both wait for a fish to bite. "Think he’ll catch anything?" Sarah asks after a few minutes of Alvin fruitlessly standing there.

Clementine leans back and pulls her hat over her eyes. "Who knows." She sees Sarah frown before falling into a short nap, Rebecca’s soft laugh at her husband fading into nothing.

A splash wakes her up, and when she sits up, she startles Sarah curled up next to her. "What is it?" Sarah wipes at her eyes as she sits up, too.

They look to the river and Alvin struggling with something on his line.

"Alvin's got a fish!" Sarah shouts, running over to him.

Rebecca wakes up from her own nap at that and walks over to her husband. "Just reel it in," she says.

"I don't have a reel!" He pulls the pole back toward him. "This better be a damn big fish."

Clementine wades out into the river herself before anyone can stop her, keeping her bandaged arm above the water. She follows Alvin’s line until she sees the shadow of a fish as the line disappears into the water. "Alvin, pull!" she shouts.

The fish breaks the surface of the water, and Clementine grabs onto the wiggling thing before it can get away. Sarah runs to her, and together they carry it over to the cooler Rebecca brought.

Clementine, Sarah, and Alvin stop to catch their breaths, and Alvin says, very decidedly, that he’s not going to be the one to touch or unhook the thing.

Rebecca smiles and laughs. "I can’t believe I’m going to be saddled with  _two_ babies," she says, shuffling over to the cooler. She unhooks the fish in one swift motion, and shuts the cooler before it can flop out. "If you can catch a few more that size, we’ll have enough food for a few days, at least."

Alvin takes a deep breath and exhales as he puts his hands on his waist. "Ready to catch a few more, girls?"

"Yes!" Sarah says, bouncing on her heels. Clementine, surprisingly, finds herself just as excited.

By the end of the trip, they manage to catch four more decently sized fish, and Clementine and Sarah carry the wriggling heavy cooler between them.

"Maybe we should tell Pete and Nick to set up their fish traps, next time," Rebecca suggests.

"But that was really fun," Sarah pouts, and Clementine has to agree.

"Let's just go bring home the good news," Alvin says. "And good fish!"

_Home_ , Clementine thinks, looking at her three companions. She imagines Ben waiting for her at the cabin, as excited as her with all the fish they’ve brought back. And just because Pete and Nick set up traps doesn't mean they can't go fishing together again. "Yeah. Let’s go home."


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> end episode one

Ben hates the way her face falls when just he, Nick, and Luke return to the cabin. She had run out of the kitchen, a fully fledged smile on her face, for once, and he shot it down with only a few words.

"But you didn't find them at all, right?" Ben nods. "So maybe they're still out there. We can still find them."

He smiles at that, just a little, and follows her into the kitchen, where a pile of fish is laid out in the sink and the counter. Pete and Carlos are cleaning them, and Sarah goes on to Nick and Luke about how she and Clementine went out into the river to bring them in. It explains why their clothes are a little wet, at least.

"Nick and I will set up some traps tonight," Pete says. "We can't have you girls going out into the river with it getting colder. You'll get sick. I don't think we'll catch as many as this, but it's worth trying."

"Can I come with you to the river?" Clementine asks, and Pete nods. Sarah offers to come as well, but Carlos tells her it'd be safer for her to stay in the cabin.

Nick walks over and elbows Ben in the arm. "You want to come with us?" His eyes widen in surprise, and he gives Nick a shaky, _sure_ in response. He tries not to make his elation too obvious but, over the counter, he catches Pete’s knowing look.

The way to the river isn’t a long one, Pete tells him the next morning, and Clementine assures Ben he’s telling the truth. Still, he would feel guilty for leaving Nick behind, so he hangs back while Pete and Clementine continue on the path. Unfortunately, when Nick comes out of the trees and sees only Ben standing there, he storms off in Pete and Clementine’s direction without a word. Ben follows him, worried at how tightly Nick is gripping his rifle, but otherwise remains silent.

They come across Clementine and Pete at the tail end of Pete’s story, and Ben finds himself mildly amused at the thought of Nick sparing an innocent deer. Except, Pete turns it into a backhanded comment about what happened the other day. He’s about to turn to comment to Nick, but Nick explodes before he can.

"I apologized and they accepted!" Nick argues, and as Pete begins to argue back, Ben and Clementine are quick to jump to Nick's defense.

"He also helped look for our friends," Ben says. "Everything's okay now."

Pete looks only half convinced, still glaring at Nick, but he sighs as Nick pushes past him toward the river. Ben, surprised Pete doesn’t immediately go after him, follows Nick himself.

"Are you all right?"

"Go ask my uncle," Nick grumbles. "He knows everything."

Ben steps in front of him and stares him in the eye, for once thankful for his height. Otherwise, he’d probably back down from the severity of Nick’s glare in an instant. Still, he’s started to think of Nick as something like a friend and, from his invitation yesterday, Ben figures Nick thinks the same for him. "I’m not asking your uncle," Ben says. "I’m asking you."

Nick looks ready to back down, until he looks somewhere over Ben’s shoulder and starts yelling for his uncle. Ben whirls around, worried there are walkers behind him, but what he sees is worse. A handful of dead bodies line the riverbank, and for a sickening moment, Ben worries one of them might be Omid or Christa.

Pete and Clementine reach them in record time, and they all spread out to search the bodies. Thankfully, Ben doesn’t recognize any of them, but only the bodies on one side of the river.

"There are more on the other side," Pete says, and suggests they investigate the rest.

"What if there are other people still alive?" Clementine asks when Nick disagrees. "We can't just leave them."

"Doesn't make it a  _good_  idea," Nick says, but doesn’t stop them as they begin to cross the river while he stays behind.

Ben checks the bodies on one end of the small island while Clementine checks the other, and Pete continues on to the far side of the river. He still doesn’t recognize any of the bodies - not that it makes the massacre any better. One of the bodies begins to reanimate as he walks closer, impaled by a spear instead of shot in the head like the rest. Ben shudders, but forces himself to pull the spear out of the walker’s stomach and drive it into its head.

_They must have been fishing before they were ambushed_ , he thinks. They probably saw or heard the others fishing and decided to try their own luck; that, or Clementine and the rest got very luck when they decided to go fishing. This could have been them. Ben’s glad Sarah didn’t have to see this.  _Probably why Carlos is so insistent on keeping her in the cabin_.

His thoughts are cut off by a gunshot and Pete's swearing from across the river. Clementine rushes over to Ben’s side, and he knows she can see the bite on Pete’s ankle as they look over. In an instant, everything goes south. Drawn in by the gunshot - and Nick’s shout for his uncle - walkers in the area begin pouring in, surrounding Nick and Pete on both sides of the river.

"Clem." Ben grabs Clementine by her shoulders and turns her to face Nick's side of the river. "Go help Nick, okay? And bring help when you can."

"What about you?"

Ben closes his eyes for a moment and takes a deep breath. "I’m going to help Pete."

Clementine wrestles herself out of his grip and turns to face him. "But he’s - "

"I know!" He pushes her back when she tries to run past him. "Just go!" He doesn't look behind him when he dashes across the river, using the rocks as footholds as Clementine had earlier. He picks up a nearby branch and smashes a walker's head in as he passes. He pries a walker off Pete, which Pete promptly shoots after, and they both turn to look at the other side of the river.

Nick and Clementine stare back at them, both looking like they’re about to swim across themselves, until walkers chase them into the forest. "They’ll be fine," Ben says, pulling Pete into the forest on their side. Pete limps behind him, and the bite slowly kills him from the inside.


	8. A House Divided

The air smells like stale cigarettes, but the van is the safest place they could find. Ben sits across from Pete, but the van is so small and his legs are so long that he has to sit cross legged. Pete massages his leg, probably trying to get feeling back in it - Lee had mentioned his arm going numb before Christa cut it off, and when it doesn’t seem to be working he looks up at Ben.

"Well if this isn't ironic," Pete says with a grimace. Ben doesn't smile, just stares at him and his leg and wonders what exactly they can do. So he asks. "Hand me that handsaw next to you, there." Ben does and scrambles away when Pete sets it above his ankle.

It’s Lee all over again. People cutting off limbs, trying to save themselves. Ben remembers how much Lee and Mr. Parker screamed. He doesn’t think he has it in him to watch it again, so he places his hands over his ears and closes his eyes.

Pete nudges his leg with the handsaw not a minute later, shrugging when Ben looks at Pete’s foot, still attached.

"Can't do it," he says. "I'd just bleed out anyway. And no offense, kid, I don't think you could carry me all the way back to Carlos like this."

"Maybe," Ben starts, throat tightening. "Maybe I can find something else here to help."

Even as he searches the front of the van, he can hear Pete wheezing behind him. And, of course, there’s nothing useful in the van at all, probably ransacked days or months or years ago, leaving only boxes of cigarettes and a handsaw behind. Ben sits in the driver’s seat and turns the keys in the ignition. Whoever raided the thing even stripped it of gas, and the engine makes a noise similar to Pete behind him. The dull thuds of the walkers punching the van migrates toward the front, though, he notices.

"There's nothing here," Ben says, returning to sit near Pete. He keeps his distance and puts his back to the front of the van.

Pete sighs and swallows heavily. "Give me one of those in there," Pete says. He gestures toward the box of cigarettes, and Ben complies, though not a fan of the smell. Pete lights one of the cigarettes and, lifting himself up slightly, removes the pistol from the back of his jeans and hands it to Ben. "Just in case."

Ben keeps it near, for once comforted by the feel of a gun under his hand, and dozes off to the smell of cigarette smoke.

He wakes to a hacking cough and Pete leaned over, breathing even more heavily than before. Ben slowly lifts himself up, careful not to make a sound, and keeps Pete’s gun close as he approaches him. In what little light he has left, Ben can see the paleness in Pete’s skin and the dark, sunken holes under his eyes.

Pete rights himself faster than Ben expects, and when Ben jumps backwards the old man lets out a weak laugh. "I’m not going to make it," Pete says, though it’s been obvious to them both from the start. "But you’ve got to get out of here."

Ben helps him stand, and he can feel the heat off Pete’s body even through his jacket. "What about Nick?"

Pete shakes his head. "I can’t let that kid see another one of his family like this. Can’t - can’t let him kill another one of his family." Pete steps around him and makes his way to the front on shaking legs. Even after just the short distance, he sighs in relief when he sits in the driver’s seat.

Ben stands awkwardly, Pete’s gun heavy in his hands, and doesn’t ask what he means. The engine lets out a desperate whine when Pete turns the keys. "I’m sorry," Ben says.

Pete shakes his head again, slower this time. "Just look after Nick for me. Kid’s - kid’s gonna need it. And do me… one last favor?"

He wants Pete to go back to the cabin, for Nick to be able to say good bye, but - "Yeah, anything you need."

"I don't want to become one of those things. Don't… want to bite someone else, put someone else through this." He notices Ben hesitate. "Please, Ben."

Ben nods stiffly and closes his eyes for just one moment. He’s Lee and Kenny in the meat locker, Larry’s life in their hands. He’s Kenny standing over himself in the alley, walkers closing in as he begs to die. He’s Clementine in the jewelry store.

Strong, capable of doing the right thing.

Pete revs the engine again until they can see the walkers attempting to crawl over the hood of the van. Ben puts one hand on the latch on the van door and looks back.

"Please."

Ben squeezes the trigger, pushes the door open, and runs.

Only when he hears the sound of rushing water does he stop. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and takes a moment to breathe. Though he can barely see where he’s going in the dark, he somehow managed to make it back to the river. Meaning the cabin’s pretty much a straight shot away. He stands up straight and moves to wipe his mouth again with his sleeve, but he stops.

His jacket still smells like cigarette smoke.

It’s enough to make his stomach churn again, but the low moans of walkers spur him forward. His chest burns with every breath he takes, but he keeps running. For the dark and the sound of blood pumping in his ears he can’t tell if there are walkers around him, and he hopes he isn’t bringing any  _back_  with him as he heads to the cabin.

He doesn’t reach it until morning.

He hits the ground hard on his knees, panting, when he finally reaches the back door. His eyes burn, his throat burns, his legs burn, and he can’t get up or yell for  _someone_  to find him. But does he  _want_  someone to find him, Pete’s gun on his hip, blood on his hands, and alone?

Not Nick. Nick  _can’t_  see him, but he has to, needs to, and Ben couldn’t keep this from him. Not when Pete is Nick’s family - not again.

The kitchen door opens to Clementine’s surprised and relieved face, and she makes it to him before anyone else does. She takes his hands in her little ones and holds them as they shake with all the guilt in the world. His mouth moves to tell her what happened, but no sound comes out, just heavy breathing and one broken sob.

Clementine wraps her arms around his neck, and it’s all he can do not to break down right there.

"You all right?" asks Nick, somewhere next to him. "Where's Pete?" Ben doesn't lift his head from Clementine's shoulder.

"He was bit," comes Clementine's voice, loud against his ear. "When we got attacked at the river, he - he got bit."

Ben pulls himself away from Clementine just for Nick to demand that he be taken to Pete. Though Ben nods, Luke cuts in, "Give the kid a moment to rest, Nick. He looks - " Luke turns to him with an apologetic shrug, " - well he looks like shit."

Legs leaden and heart heavy, Ben starts walking back to the van, anyway. He’s vaguely aware of more than Clementine, Nick, and Luke following him, and he prays at least Sarah isn’t one of them.

When they get to the river, he pauses for the others to take in the sight. Once everyone has calmed down enough, he leads them across the river and into the forest. The van sticks out among the trees, blood red against all else. It only takes a moment for them to clear out the walkers still around the vehicle, and Ben leans against the side of the van while Nick enters it.

He can hear Nick’s swearing echo through the van. Ben wraps his arms tight around himself and forces himself to walk to the back of the van as Nick exits.

"He's been shot in the head," Nick announces, head hung low. Clementine grabs the side of Ben's jacket and steadies him.

"Was it Carver?" Alvin asks, and it sets them into a worried frenzy.

Luke puts himself in the middle of everyone, gesturing for them to calm down, but it’s no use. It’s Ben, however, his voice barely a whisper above the din, that quiets them.

"It was  _me_."


	9. Chapter 9

"Say that again," Nick demands, standing in front of him.

"It - it was me. I shot Pete, I - " his body begins to shake " - he got bit, back at the river, like Clementine said. I thought if I went with him, I could help him, but... I - I couldn't."

Nick walks away and slams his fist on the side of the van. Ben jumps at the sound and watches Luke place a hand on Nick’s shoulder. Clementine’s fist tightens in his jacket.

He _has_ to explain. Because Nick has to know. Ben can’t keep it to himself, now, and even though he knows what comes next, he keeps  _going_. "I wanted to get him back to the cabin, but he said it wouldn’t be fair - to you. So he asked me to shoot him, and I - "

"And you did," Luke completes for him. "We understand."

He isn’t sure everyone does, not even Luke, because no one else says a word or even looks at him. When Nick turns back around to address Luke, he doesn’t even look in Ben’s direction.

"We have to bury him. I can't just leave him out here."

They carry Pete’s body most of the way back to the cabin, and Ben and Clementine trail behind them silently, unsure of what else to do. If only he  was  _stronger_ , if only he could have helped Pete with his leg, if only he wasn’t a completely useless coward, then maybe - maybe Pete would still be alive. Then Nick and everyone else wouldn’t hate him, and he wouldn’t hate  _himself_.

The group stops in a clearing across the river but still a ways away from the cabin. Everyone but Luke stays behind, who motions for Ben and Clementine to follow him.

"I'm gonna head back to get Carlos and Sarah. And a shovel, I guess," he says, walking with them. "Things are a little hard right now, but you guys are still welcome to stay with us. Nick won't say it, but he doesn't want to kick you guys out, either."

Ben tries to hide his sigh of relief, but fails.

"But I'm also gonna ask that you guys stay behind for this. He's… well, Nick's not in a good place, and I don't think you guys being there will help much."

He and Clementine nod. "I’m sorry," Ben whispers, voice hoarse. "I’m so sorry." Luke gently pats him on the back, and they make their way back to the cabin in silence.

But when they return to the cabin and inform Carlos, he decides not to bring Sarah along at all. Luke and Carlos argue; Luke thinks Sarah should get to say goodbye since she knew Pete as well, but Carlos says it’s still too dangerous for her to be outside and that it's not something she needs to see. Carlos wins out, since Sarah is his daughter, and goes upstairs to explain to her what’s going on.

Ben sits on the couch and puts his head in his hands.

"You know, you look like Nick when you do that," Luke says, but doesn't elaborate. Ben doesn't make him.

Carlos and Sarah emerge from their room minutes later; Sarah sniffles as she walks down the stairs with Carlos’s hand on her back.

"I'm trusting you to watch her."

Clementine gives him their promises, and he and Luke leave for Pete’s burial. Sarah sits herself between Ben and Clementine on the couch and tries to get more information out of them. Carlos had apparently only told her very little of what had happened, and when Clementine explains fully, Sarah curls in on herself.

"Is there, uh," Ben tries, shifting to face her, "is there anything you'd like to do? To pass the time?"

She perks up after a moment and, taking his and Clementine’s hands, leads them into one of the bedrooms. Before they can question, Sarah whirls around and snaps a picture of them with an old Polaroid camera.

When he looks at the picture, he understands why Luke said he looked horrible. His hair is matted and overlong (he was going to ask Clementine to cut it, before all this started), and there are the beginnings of bruises under his eyes. He frowns, but Sarah smiles and asks him to take a picture of her and Clementine.  

He gets them in the frame, but Clementine’s smile looks forced. He peers over the small camera and offers her the best smile he can manage, and when she smiles back, he takes the picture. Sarah admires it when it finishes developing, holding it up to the window for light.

"Hey, Luke's back!" she says, just before running downstairs. Ben peers out of the window, but doesn't see anyone. And why would Luke come back  _alone_ , anyway?

Clementine runs down the stairs after her, and Ben follows right behind. When they round the corner of the stairs, they find Sarah hiding behind a wall, just out of sight of the front door.

"That's not Luke." She stares at Ben wide-eyed, breathing ragged. "I think - I think I know him. He  _can’t_ see me!"

He looks to Clementine, and they piece it together. "Sarah, look at me," he says gently. "Just breathe, okay? Deep breaths." She does, and though her breathing evens she still looks terrified. "Go hide where he can’t see you. And don’t come out until this guy leaves, all right?"

Sarah nods and takes off, ducking somewhere behind the couch. Clementine approaches the door and Ben blocks the view of the living room, just in case Sarah needs hide somewhere else.

A man wearing a thick coat welcomes himself inside the house, despite Clementine asking him to leave.

"I'm just looking for some members of my group. They got lost," the man explains. "Who are you two?"

"I'm Doug," Ben says, and Clementine introduces herself as Carley. "Who's all in your group?"

The man rattles off a list, never giving names, but with each description Ben instantly matches a name and face. If he had come any time later, he might have found all of them - except Pete.

Clementine shrugs. "They’re not here. It’s just me and Doug."

The smile the man gives her is disturbing, like he sees right through her and him and their lies. The feeling only gets worse when he looks at the chessboard on the table, easily declaring that white is three moves from check mate. Ben and Clementine shrug him off, and they follow him into the kitchen.

"A lot of plates for just you two," he says, looking at the sink and the dishes from the other night.

"We, uh… we were just about to wash them, actually," Ben says, only for the man to look at him skeptically. When they head back into the main room, a noise from upstairs causes them all to look up.

The man draws his gun, despite their claims the noise was probably the wind, and heads upstairs. They stay right behind him, desperately trying to get him to calm down, only for them to be hushed.

He pushes the door open to the bedroom Sarah had disappeared into, gun drawn, but apparently finds no one. Clementine squeezes Ben’s hand when the man’s back is turned, and she points out Sarah underneath the bed.

"Told you it was nothing," Ben says with a shrug.

The man holsters his gun, but before they can get him to leave the room he bends down. Ben’s heart practically skips a beat before he realizes the man didn’t find Sarah, but it sinks when he holds up the picture of Sarah and Clementine.

"You don't know who this is, hm?" the man asks, smiling horribly. He doesn't go for his gun, but he steps closer to Clementine. "Do you even know who these people are?"

"That's none of your business," Clementine says defiantly. The man looks to Ben, but Ben instantly avoids his gaze.

"You have no idea what kind of people they are, do you?" he says, voice lower than before. "Did they trust you right away, when you found them? Do you think they trust you now?"

Ben continues staring at the floor, willing the man’s words not to sink in, though they do. The group might have trusted him a day ago, but not now. Not after what he did. And they almost killed Clementine when they first met.

The man brushes by him with a firm hand on his shoulder. "We'll be seeing each other again, soon. I promise you." Chills run up his spine, and Ben doesn’t move until the man is downstairs.

"Who are you?" Clementine calls, but he only wishes them a good day. "Do you think he was telling the truth?" She keeps her voice low as Sarah crawls out from under the bed.

"I don't know," Ben says.

"Do you think he'll come back?" Sarah asks when she stands between them.

Ben exhales a shaky sigh. "I don’t know."


	10. Chapter 10

Ben thumbs through Sarah’s book in his lap as he sits at the foot of the couch. Clementine and Sarah sleep at opposite ends, somehow making enough room for each other on the small loveseat.

He knows he should rest; he had run all night with only the few hours of sleep he caught in the van. But every time he closes his eyes he feels his hand on the trigger and hears the gunshot clear as day.

Pete’s gun lies on the coffee table in front of him, right next to the chessboard the man had inspected earlier. Ben shifts forward, looks at the board himself, and tries to find the three moves to checkmate. Travis taught him how to play chess, before, but never enough to actually have a chance at beating him.

Still, even losing hundreds of games, Ben can’t see the moves in his head.

He flips through Sarah’s book once more, anything to wash away the memory of cold metal in his hands.

He didn’t do anything  _ wrong _ .

But he hurt Nick anyway.

He groans just as the back door opens, and he jumps up, worried the man has returned. But Luke steps through the door, then Alvin, Rebecca, and Carlos. Nick enters the kitchen shortly after, putting the kitchen island between him and everyone else.

Ben wakes Clementine and Sarah. Sarah perks up the moment she sees her dad and runs into the kitchen; Clementine wakes much more slowly and stares at him like he’s someone else entirely.

Before Ben can ask if Nick’s all right, Sarah launches into telling her dad about the man that visited.

"Ben and Clementine talked to him!"

There’s the same uneasy rustle of commotion that began when they found Pete, and Ben hardly knows what to say.

"Did he say what his name was? What did he look like?" Carlos asks.

"He didn't say his name. But, we.. we gave him fake ones, so he could have done the same, anyway."

Clementine frowns. "He had a big, fluffy coat." When Carlos asks about the fur lining, she nods.

"He saw a picture of me and Clementine," Sarah confesses. Carlos instantly rounds on Ben when he admits to taking the picture, but Sarah intervenes.

And he can never do anything  _ right _ , it seems.

Luke declares the cabin unsafe now that Carver knows where they are. Ben and Clementine are forced to follow, now that he’s seen them, and frankly Ben doesn’t mind keeping himself as far away from Carver as he can. Clementine shares his worries about finding Omid and Christa, but Luke assures them they’re heading in the same direction.

They help the group gather any necessary supplies they can find - some of the fish they caught at the river, blankets, clothes, water, and medical supplies. Something glass clinks in Clementine’s backpack, but Ben figures it’s just more supplies so he lets it go.

When everyone is packed and ready, they head out. Luke, Nick, and Clementine lead the pack, followed by him, Carlos, and Sarah. Rebecca and Alvin follow close behind them, Alvin’s arm around Rebecca as they walk.

"How far along are you, Rebecca?" Ben says, turning to look over his shoulder. "If you… don't mind."

Rebecca gives him a surprisingly warm, if unsure, smile. "Maybe six or seven months, now. It’s hard to keep track of time anymore."

"Are you worried at all?"

"Mostly about what to name the kid," Alvin chimes in.

"With Carlos here, there's little to worry about," Rebecca adds. "I just hope we're in a good place when the baby comes."

Ben’s smile fades, a little. "Christa - she was pregnant, too. She had to be when we first met her and Omid, I guess. But - " Ben doesn’t finish, seeing Rebecca’s smile drop as well. "But I’m sure everything will turn out okay. Don’t worry. We… we didn’t have a doctor with us, when Christa’s baby came."

"Look, Beck, we'll have even better of a shot with more people who know how to handle childbirth, right?" Alvin reassures her. Rebecca nods and offers Ben another small smile in thanks.

Ben sighs, cursing himself.  _ Way to tell her about a pregnancy that  _ didn’t  _ work out, genius. _

"Hey," comes Nick's voice, next to him. Ben hadn't even noticed Nick slowed down. "I heard - I heard you saying something to Luke, back at the van. Something about Pete. Did my uncle say anything?"

"I tried to get him to come back to the cabin," Ben answers, staring at his feet. "But he didn't want you to have to shoot him."

"Fuck," Nick sighs. Nick continues to walk next to him, but doesn't speak for a moment, until, "I had to kill my mom." Ben almost loses his footing in surprise, but quickly rights himself and looks up at Nick. His hat is set low over his eyes, glassy as he looks forward. "After she got bit, I was the one that killed her."

"You saved her from becoming a walker," Ben offers.

Nick scoffs. "Yeah, and it’s all fucked. It’s all a fucking nightmare, and we’re right in the middle of it." He pauses. "I don’t blame you, you know. For -  _ shit _ \- for shooting Pete. You did… what you had to do."

Ben wraps his arms around himself, unsure of what to say. He nods and waits for Nick to leave him, but he never does.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> because we all need a break.

They stop for the night in a clearing far from the cabin, but only a short distance away from the cigarette van. It isn’t close enough for Ben to see it through the trees, but he feels its haunting presence anyway even if Pete is no longer there.

Luke tells them they’re at least five days away from some mountains where they can lose Carver, and a collective groan passes through the camp. Everyone spreads out bedrolls; Rebecca and the younger kids are set up in the middle of the camp while the other adults take the outside. Ben places himself beside Clementine’s spot.

By the way Nick continues to stare in the direction of the van, Ben isn’t sure Nick should have to keep watch for the night. He brings it up with Luke, who agrees. Nick doesn’t, and he argues with Luke only a few feet outside camp, loud enough for the others to hear. When he returns, he lays himself out on his bedroll and ignores everyone for the rest of the night.

Luke comes back into camp with his shoulders slumped and shrugs at Ben before he takes up his place for watch. Ben sighs, wraps his blanket around himself, and somehow manages to sleep through the rest of the night.

Ben wakes to the sound of high pitched whispers, and when he opens his eyes he sees two pairs of shoes pass over him, heading out into the forest. He sits up and looks over to see Sarah and Clementine’s beds empty and Alvin dozing off on watch. After waking Alvin, he heads in the same direction as the girls.

He edges himself around a tree nearby and keeps himself out of sight, just in case they’re only out for something innocent. That is, until he hears Clementine whisper, "A gun is  _not_ a toy."

Though he announces himself, Sarah spins around and aims the gun right at his head. He raises his hands immediately and doesn’t drop them until Clementine slowly lowers the gun in Sarah’s hands.

"Sorry… I didn't mean to. You scared me," Sarah says, head bowed in shame.

Ben shakes his head and smiles at her. "I’m sorry, but be careful, okay? And listen to Clementine."

Sarah nods, and Clementine continues to teach her how to handle the gun. It reminds him of what Lilly taught him, back at the Motor Inn. He’d never really handled an actual gun before, a fact that became painfully obvious when Lilly first began teaching him. But with her help, he became decent enough to stand on watch. Not that he actually  _liked_ handling weapons.

After that, he’d come to like her well enough. She was strong and she protected them - even him, when she didn't have to. But then she tried to kill him and killed Doug instead. Sometimes he thinks she shouldn't have missed.

"The gun didn't have anything in it when I found it under the cabin," Sarah says after Clementine finishes teaching her how to hold it. "So I can't practice."

_When did she have a moment to go under the cabin_? "Uh, that's fine," Ben says. "You'll probably be a decent shot if you ever need to use it." Not that he hopes she ever does.

"And we don't want to attract walkers, anyway," Clementine adds, slowly taking the gun from her. Sarah lets it go, and they quickly run back to camp at the sound of Carlos calling. When questioned, Ben tells him that the girls wanted to play before they had to leave again, and Carlos believes him.

The group packs up soon after, and then it’s another day of walking. Nick trails far behind the rest of them, but he shrugs Ben off when he falls back to walk with him. He walks in front of him, instead, listening for his footsteps to make sure Nick’s still walking.

Occasionally, Clementine and Luke look behind them, and Ben gestures that everything is okay.

Almost.

By the time they make camp the next night, Nick still hasn’t talked to him or anyone else. But he walks up to Clementine as she’s digging around in her backpack.

"Do you still have those bottles, Clem?" he asks, and she nods, pulling out a small, dark brown jar. Nick unscrews and drinks from it before walking off, but Ben still catches the scent of alcohol.

"Is he drinking?"

"We found whiskey in the cellar we stayed in, after we ran from the river," Clementine says. "Nick decided to take some."

Luke sighs. "He would, wouldn’t he? We should probably find him."

Sarah tags along when she learns they’re going after Nick, and they find him drinking alone on a log just outside camp. He doesn’t look up when the four of them arrive.

"Should we stop him?" Ben whispers to Luke.

"Won't help."

Ben rolls his eyes and, as casually as he can muster, sits next to Nick on the log. Nick still doesn’t look at him, but he pauses his hand halfway to carrying the jar to his mouth.

Clementine and Sarah join him afterward. Clementine sits next to Nick and props her head up with her hands. Sarah lays herself out at Nick’s feet, and Ben thinks he sees the corner of Nick’s mouth twitch in a smile as Sarah grins up at him. The air shifts behind him as Luke sits himself at his friend’s back, close enough for Nick to lean back against him.

It’s then that Nick throws the jar of whiskey, that he puts his head in his hands and sobs, and it’s then that they all shift closer to him, not saying a word, until the sun sets behind the trees.


	12. Chapter 12

After last night, Nick opens up more. He talks to the few who sat with him, but only talks to the others if they talk to him. When he does talk, Ben thinks he sees a little of the old Nick back, laughing at Luke’s jokes and entertaining Sarah with his own.

But sometimes, Nick doesn’t talk at all, and then Ben doesn’t think of the Nick that smiles as  _old Nick_. He thinks of him as a Nick that’s healing, and on bad days he’s a Nick that’s healing slower.

Ben knows the feeling.

When they finally make it to the edge of the forest, Nick’s having a Bad Day. Ben walks next to the rock Clementine climbs up to get a view of the area. He uses his hand to block the sun as he looks at the mountain range in the far distance. The morning haze paints the mountains as silhouettes, but they still stand tall over the canopy of trees.

Clementine spots a ski lodge far up the nearest mountain and the lift nearby. She also spots the bridge that will get them across. And even if the station near the bridge is too small for them to stay the night, Ben would much rather be there than out in the woods again. Constantly having to worry that every noise around them is either walkers or Carver hasn’t sat well in everyone’s minds, and Rebecca and Alvin are worried about their baby now more than ever.

Ben sides with Carlos when he objects to Clementine following Luke over the bridge. The last time Ben and Clementine involuntarily separated, she ended up getting bit by a dog. Though, his caution only earns him a challenging look from Clementine and insistence from Luke that he’ll keep her safe.

He eventually accepts, but even Nick gets shot down when he offers to accompany them. It’s the first time he’s spoken all day.

"I'm sure they'll be fine," Ben says. "Clementine will keep Luke safe, if anything."

Nick sighs heavily. "Whatever."

Deciding to give Nick some space, Ben sits on top of the rock Clementine had used earlier. He can make out blurry shadows on the bridge, but it isn’t enough for him to tell anything apart. It feels like a horribly long wait, and he regrets not following the pair across the bridge anyway. Except, someone would probably get hurt or die in the end - so maybe they’re safer with him far away.

He thinks he finally sees motion on the bridge; two figures walk across slowly, and he thinks they must be Clementine and Luke finally there. He jumps off the rock and is about to point them out to him until he sees something fall off the bridge.

He and Nick race through the trail their friends took and follow the trail of walker bodies when they finally get to the bridge.

"Do you see them?" Nick asks, holding his rifle tightly.

"No - not from here."

There’s a large hole in the middle of the bridge surrounded by dark blood stains and more dead walkers. Below them, another walker groans and reaches its hand out to grab at them, but he’s impaled through the chest by one of the beams. Ben looks away, stomach sick. Nick nudges him in the arm.

"They made it out, look," he says, motioning toward two figures just over a pile of cars. From their angle, they can only see the top of Luke's head and the man in front of him, and Ben hopes Clementine is just too short for him to see.

"Is he holding them up?" Ben whispers as they crouch behind one of the cars.

"Probably. Did you see his gun?" Nick starts to creep around their cover. "We have to do something."

Ben nods and follows Nick around the car, slowly. Nick stands and aims in one fluid motion, eyes on the man in front of Luke and Clementine. Ben, however, looks down and sees Clementine waving her arms and shaking her head, and from their distance he  _swears_ he hears them shout _no_.

He jumps out from their cover in an instant, and shoves Nick’s rifle to the right just as he pulls the trigger. The gunshot deafens him from a moment, and he almost loses his balance from the awkward angle of the kickback. But just as his hearing begins to clear, Nick begins to yell at him.

Nick grabs Ben’s jacket with one hand and jerks him forward. "What the  _fuck_ were you thinking?"

"He was stopping  _you_ from killing that guy, asshole," Luke says, pulling Ben out of Nick’s grasp. "Thankfully  _he_ heard us yell for you to stop. So what the fuck were  _you_ thinking?"

"We  _both_ thought he was holding you two up!"

Ben backs away from them, and Clementine walks up by his side. "I’m glad you were here," she says. Ben doesn’t respond as they watch the rest of the group appear at the other end of the bridge while Luke and Nick continue to argue.

Carlos is the first to ask what happened, and Luke is the first to elaborate, though his anger towards Nick colors his explanation considerably. They move everyone off the bridge, and Rebecca to a more comfortable location, before they continue holding… trial, Ben would call it.

And it’s achingly familiar.

"We really did think that guy was going to shoot you," Ben says when they gather just outside the station.  _That guy_ goes into the station and returns with a can of food for Rebecca. "It… it really was by chance I heard you guys. It isn’t Nick’s fault."

"And why did Nick not hear them?" Carlos asks.

"I - " He looks to Nick, who has his arms crossed and his head down. "I was just hiding. Nick was the one busy trying to save them. So that's why he didn't hear."

"He was too focused, you're saying."

"Yeah."

Carlos sighs, but Luke still rounds on Nick. "Him being  _too focused_ almost got an innocent man killed. Look, man, I know you’re upset about Pete, but - "

Nick pushes past Luke with a mumbled  _fuck you_ and sits alone on a bench near the station. Ben sees Clementine go to him before the man from the bridge walks over to join the jury.

He introduces himself as Matthew and part of a group taking shelter in the ski lodge just up the mountain. Luke and Carlos sigh in relief when he offers them a place to stay.

"Hey, I haven't actually thanked you yet, have I? So - thanks," Matthew says, addressing Ben. "Is that guy all right? He seems… pretty stressed. And I mean, without all this."

"It's been a hard week. His uncle... died, recently," Ben says before Luke can. He isn't sure how much of Nick's story he wants to tell. "But he's a good guy."

At that, Matthew smiles. "If you say so. Look, this place is obviously too small for you guys, so let me take you up to the lodge." Carlos nods and leaves to inform the others. "I'll introduce you guys to my partner, Walter, and the others staying with us. If we leave now, we should reach them before nightfall."

Ben and Luke nod, but Luke’s eyes widen as he stares back at the bridge. "I don't think we have a choice," he says, heading toward the rest of the group while pulling Ben with him. Ben looks over his shoulder to see walkers making their way across the bridge.

Matthew leads the way to the lodge, and Ben makes sure to run with Nick as they leave the massing horde behind them.


	13. Chapter 13

They slow their pace halfway up the mountain, and Ben’s aching legs thank them for it. They had left the horde behind at the base of the mountain, but they continued running just in case. Rebecca and Alvin lead the group, just behind Matthew, eager to get themselves to the lodge and safety. Carlos helps Sarah climb up the steeper areas and now, more than even after his "surgery," Ben wishes he still had his cane.

Though his wound has long since healed, it’s still more difficult for him to keep up with everyone else. Surprisingly, Nick stays at his back, helping him forward when he starts to slow down. With Nick’s help, Ben keeps up with Luke and Clementine just in front of him.

The sun is low in the sky by the time they finally reach the top of the mountain and the back of the lodge. Matthew dismisses himself to retrieve his group - better he shows up alone and brings everyone back to them, he says - and everyone takes a much needed rest. Ben leans his back against the balcony that overlooks the valley; ever since Savannah, looking over tall heights makes him uncomfortable.

He listens as Luke tries to convince Clementine to climb the lift to look for signs of Carver and follows them over when he succeeds. He can’t watch her climb up for very long, instead distracting himself with Luke’s story. Only partially, at least.

"I didn't have a tree house, but when we were younger we used to hop rooftops. Now  _that_ was fun."

"Sounds dangerous," Clementine calls above them.

"Well," Luke says, frowning. "The trick is not to look down."

Ben shrugs and places a hand over his stomach. "Good advice."

"Ah - shit. Sorry, I didn't mean to - " Ben cuts him off by elbowing him in the ribs. Luke smiles and continues watching Clementine while Ben keeps an eye out for Matthew's return.

Clementine yelps high above them and, against his better judgment, Ben looks up to see her leaning flat against the ladder, forehead pressed against one of the rungs.

"I've got ya, okay? Be careful." Luke walks closer to the bottom of the ladder, arms outstretched.

"Don't look down, remember? You're - you're almost there, Clem, you can do it," Ben yells up to her. He sees her nod and continue climbing, and eventually she reaches the top.

"That was a little dangerous," Luke says with a sigh.

"You were the one that told her to go up there."

Luke puts his hands on his hips and looks ready to comment until Clementine yells down to them. Ben can’t make himself look, so he glances back at the lodge again, and this time the group gathered around the lodge seems noticeably larger.

He nudges Luke in the shoulder to get his attention. "I think Matthew’s back."

Luke nods and cups his hands around his mouth. "Clem! Matt’s back with his group. Real quick - you see anything?"

"Yeah!" she says. "Lights!"

"Lights?" Ben gives Luke a questioning look. "Carver?"

Without answering, Luke runs off toward the others, presumably to tell them the news. Ben calls Clementine back down and keeps his arms outstretched until she touches the ground.

Together they walk back to join the rest of the group, and he puts a hand on her back as they part through everyone else to meet Matthew’s group. He keeps his head low as they duck around everyone, and only raises it when they reach the front.

And that’s when his heart sinks into his stomach.

"Clementine?" comes a voice he'll never forget in his entire life. Nick catches his shoulder when he stars to sway, but he never takes his eyes off the man in front of him. Though he's grown out a beard, spattered with flecks of grey hair, Ben will never forget his face.

"Kenny!" Clementine gasps and runs forward, embracing him. Kenny places his hand on her shoulder and smiles softly.

"I thought you were dead," Ben chokes out, catching Kenny's attention. And he  _had._  Kenny never showed outside Savannah, and Ben had prayed that he had made it out, somehow. Ben’s praying never amounted to much, in the end, but he’s  _so_ glad to see Kenny’s  _actually there_.

The man who had - almost - sacrificed himself to save him, a kid he hated more than anything. And he’s  _alive_.

But when he looks up at Ben, his smile drops, and from the look in his eyes, Kenny isn’t nearly as happy to see Ben as Ben is to see him.


	14. Chapter 14

Ben follows Kenny and Clementine, walking side by side, back into the lodge. And for a moment, he forgets the dead look Kenny gave him when he actually takes in the lodge’s decorations. Christmas lights line the banisters to the loft of the lodge as well as the railings around it. A fire roars in the fireplace, just across from a large, bare Christmas tree. In the back, he can see a kitchen and a few tables set up in a dining area. Faint orchestral music plays over Walter’s explanation of the cabin as well as Kenny and Clementine’s stifled laughter.

Ben tries to remember the last Christmas he had. The last time he saw his family together, gathered around the tree early Christmas morning. It’s hard to believe it’s been over three years.

Sarah is quick to point out the Christmas tree as well when she and Carlos walk through the door. Everyone places their weapons on the bench by the door, and Ben’s happy to finally get Pete’s pistol out of his hands.

Walter leads most of them up to the loft - where they’ll be sleeping, he says. The woman who had walked in with Sarah and Carlos - Sarita, he learns - takes Sarah with her to get something else. Kenny leads Clementine over to the seating area by the fireplace and doesn’t invite him.

Though the loft is slightly cramped if they all stay in one area, there are enough beds for everyone, even with their extended group.

"So," Carlos begins. "You know that man? The one with the beard?"

The attention shifts toward him, and Ben wraps his arms around his stomach. "Yeah, he - he was the one who saved my life in Savannah. He risked his life in an alley to get me out."

"He sounds like a good man," Alvin says.

Ben turns his gaze downward. "He tries to be."

"Maybe we should help them out," Nick suggests when Ben falls quiet. "I mean, they're nice enough to take us in, right? It's the least we can do."

Luke nods, and he, Ben, and Nick head back downstairs. Kenny stands up from the couch when he sees them and tells them about supplies that need to be moved inside when they ask. Kenny points at Nick and Luke to help him, completely skipping over Ben standing right next to them.

Clementine joins him at the foot of the stairs. "He seems different."

"Does he?" Kenny ignoring the fact that he exists doesn't seem very different, to him.

"Yeah. But… I didn't really spend a lot of time with him, before," she says, looking up at him. Ben  _ did _ spend a decent amount of time with him, but really… only after he had lost everything.

"It's been two years. Who knows what else he's been through."

Sarita approaches them soon after, carrying a jingling box of Christmas decorations with Sarah right behind her. She tells Clementine that Matthew and Walter would like her help with dinner, and so Clementine heads toward the kitchen, leaving Ben alone.

"Ben, right?" Sarita says, placing the box between her and Sarah. "Would you like to help us decorate the tree?"

He watches as Sarah practically dives into the box, pulling out two large, red ornaments. She hangs them on the tree’s branches and smiles at him. After a moment, he reaches into the box himself and starts placing ornaments toward the top of the tree.

"Did you decorate much for Christmas, Ben?" Sarita asks, handing him another ornament.

"I used to help my mom and my little sister decorate the Christmas tree, and my dad and I put up lights outside the house sometimes." Of course, that meant he and his dad were the only ones that could take down the lights. And that didn't happen until almost February. He looks at the tree - a little lopsided with ornaments on Sarah's side, but it reminds him of home.

He notices Sarita look between him and Sarah. "Those sound like good memories," she says, eventually, before beginning to hum an old Christmas carol.

Rebecca leans over the banister and places an angel at the top of the tree and, with Sarah’s face lit up with a smile, they declare the tree finished. Just in time for Clementine to inform everyone that dinner is ready.

Not surprisingly, the groups separate themselves for dinner - the survivors from the cabin at one table and the others at another. Clementine takes a seat across from Kenny; Sarita, Walter, and Matthew join them. Ben, at Kenny’s stone faced look, ends up sitting with Nick, Luke, and the rest of the cabin group.

"What do you think we should do about the lights Clementine saw across the bridge?" Luke asks between bites of his dinner. "We can only assume it's Carver."

"You think he'd come up here? What if we lost him up the mountain?" Nick replies.

"He'd be smart to check the lodge. I would, if I were him," Luke adds. "But we don't know who else he brought with him. With all of us, we could take him if we needed to."

"We should consider leaving," Carlos interjects. "We'd be putting the others at risk if we stayed, and we cannot risk becoming complacent."

"We could ask them if they'd help," Ben says, finally. "They've been nice enough. What if… what if we leave and end up running right into Carver? Or if Carver shows up after we leave and hurts them anyway?"

Everyone seems to consider it for a moment. Besides, why throw away a safe haven if they don’t need to? Especially with the abundance of food they have. Luke is the one to speak up, next.

"That Kenny guy - I know you said he saved you, but I haven't seen him say a word to you since we got here. You still trust him?"

Ben sighs. "With my life."

The conversation loses itself in favor of eating, and for a while all Ben can hear is the clinking of silverware against their bowls. He lifts his head when he hears his name, however.

" - if I stay, then Ben does, too," he hears Clementine say.

Across the length of tables, he and Kenny catch each other’s gaze. Ben begins to look away, before he notices Kenny’s expression change and soften, just slightly.

"Okay," he hears Kenny say, and Ben pretends his smile is for Clementine when she turns to grin at him.


	15. Chapter 15

Dinner winds down to only a few of them still sitting at the tables; most of the cabin group head up to bed, Matthew and Sarita behind them while Walter stays behind to handle the dishes. In the end, Ben, Nick, and Luke remain at their table, and Kenny and Clementine at theirs.

Luke pulls out his map and spreads it out on the table between him and Nick. "Good thing you didn’t actually hit Matthew, huh? That would’ve started some shit."

Nick tenses instantly. "Would you lay the fuck off?"

"I'm just  _saying_ ," he begins, not even looking up from the map to see Nick’s glare. "You have to be more careful."

"What if he  _had_  shot you? What if I was being careful, then?"

Luke looks up from the map with a glare of his own, and Ben is almost relieved when Kenny and Clementine join them at their table. Kenny takes the seat to Luke’s right and across from Nick, looking between the two curiously. Ben shifts himself slightly to his right when Clementine sits on Luke’s left.

"Something going on between you two?" Kenny asks, only for Luke and Nick to break each other's glare. Luke shakes his head and returns to the map. "Clementine mentioned you guys were in some trouble. You better not have brought it here to us."

Ben resists the urge to put his head in his hands again. If they end up ruining this place for Kenny and everyone else - 

"Don't worry," Luke says. "We weren't planning on staying long anyway." With a sigh, he folds up the map. Clementine looks at Luke in surprise, as if she thought they were. As if she thought everyone had finally found a place to stay. "What about you guys?" he asks after a moment, and Ben thinks he's talking to him and Clementine, until he turns to Kenny. "Just holding out for the winter?"

When Kenny mentions Wellington, both he and Clementine perk up. Christa and Omid had talked about it, a few weeks and a bad group encounter after Savannah. Something about a place to escape from the walkers, safer than the road but big enough that they don’t get trapped. A place where other groups had begun to gather, where it was cold and the walkers were slow.

Christa didn’t agree with the idea, sticking to her philosophy of avoiding large groups again; both Ben and Clementine had flinched at that, and Christa had apologized. Omid, however, thought it would be a good place to raise the baby. Clementine was excited for snow.

After the incident, Christa had agreed that maybe Wellington would be a decent place for them to go, after all. Not even Omid teased her for her change of heart.

Clementine’s the one to bring up their trip to Wellington, and it puts a smug look on Kenny’s face. Only to be wiped away by Nick’s muttered, "Sounds like bullshit."

Ben half expects Kenny to leap across the table at Nick, with the sudden flush that covers his face. Instead, the two of them go back and forth, voices barely kept low for the others who are sleeping, but he figures everyone can hear them anyway.

"Look, I don't give a shit about what you do. Clementine's staying here when you leave," Kenny says, finally. And at Clementine's, "Ben, too," everyone's gaze shifts to him.

"You're staying with this asshole?"

"I saved his  _life_  - "

"Doesn't  _not_  make you an asshole," Nick finishes, crossing his arms and looking at Ben.

He wishes he could sink into his seat. Anything to get away from the looks of betrayal from Luke and Nick, Clementine’s eager expression, and Kenny’s look that makes it painfully obvious that, if it weren’t for Clementine, he wouldn’t care what happened to Ben.

Thankfully, he’s saved by Walter inviting him and Clementine to join him outside. Even though he’s away from the argument, a layer of guilt settles upon him that not even the chill of the outside air can cut through. Though, when Clementine shivers next to him, he removes his jacket and gives it to her, leaving him in his hoodie and goosebumps on his arms.

"You two are just kids," Walter says on a sigh as they walk around the back of the lodge. "You remind me of my students, you know? Yes, even you," he adds for Ben. "Cliques are an unhappy business, but with both of you here, I'm sure they'll manage put aside their differences."

Except, Ben thinks, he’s caused trouble in both groups, and hurt people he cares about. He says enough to Walter, and when he explains, Walter says he knew about what happened to Kenny’s family and Ben’s part in it. So he explains what happened to Pete.

"And Nick is the one who was arguing with Kenny?" Ben nods. "I see." Walter pauses, and they stop when they reach the back of the lodge. "Do you think you did right by Nick's uncle?"

"Pete asked me to - " Ben swallows heavily " - I think so."  _I hope so_.

"Then, I think, Nick will be fine. With you, with his uncle's fate. You did the right thing." Walter puts a comforting hand on Ben's shoulder. "He's probably still grieving. It'll take some time."

And yet - "What about Kenny?"

Walter’s easy smile pulls back into a grimace. "It's been two years, but it’s obvious something’s still bothering him. But it wasn’t entirely your fault what happened to his family."

"You were just trying to protect us, right?" Clementine pipes up. "From the bandits. So it's their fault Duck got bit and Katjaa - " she looks down " - that they died," she finishes hollowly.

He hadn’t brought it up with Clementine, not entirely. He didn’t think she would have understood what he was doing, or why, so he had let it go until Crawford. And even after she learned what happened and stuck up for him, he figured it was because she was still too young to understand.

Yet here she is, defending him, still.

"You can't control other people's actions any more than the rest of us," Walter says. "But you can take responsibility for your actions and, whether they forgive you or not, you'll have done the right thing, I think.

Don’t be so hard on yourselves, either of you. This world is different and hard, but if we persevere and treat each other well, we’ll come out all right, in the end. Matthew taught me that."

Walter asks nothing of them, just stands and waits for the both of them to compose themselves. He laughs a little when Clementine hugs him, and even Ben finds himself smiling.

With that, the three of them head back inside, and when Clementine takes his hand, he feels lighter in the world. Even as he holds back tears and swallows against the lump in his throat.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> kenny's back to being team dad

The morning comes easier than last night, a good meal and a good night’s rest apparently having soothed some of the lingering tensions. Ben wakes early in the morning, before almost everyone else, and when he walks downstairs he sees Kenny, Sarita, Matthew, and Sarah already starting breakfast. It smells oddly similar to last night’s dinner - just heavier on the peaches.

Matthew steps back, allowing Sarah to stir the pot on the stove, and Sarita guides her into the right pace. Kenny sits, hunched over, at the nearest table. When Matthew waves Ben over, Kenny leans back and actually motions for Ben to join him. He does, and for a time they simply watch the others cook.

Kenny brushes the back of his hand against Ben’s shoulder, drawing his attention. "How's your… you know?" he asks, nodding toward Ben’s stomach. He frowns, as if he’s worried Ben will fall apart right there.

"It's healed, mostly. Christa - she sewed me up when we got away from Savannah. It's a little difficult staying active for too long, though," he adds. Except, he's had to be nothing but active for the past week - running and walking and hiking. When it was just him, Christa, Omid, and Clementine, they mostly walked everywhere and hardly ever got themselves in immediate danger.

Kenny goes quiet again, staring at him, lost in  _something_. He opens his mouth to speak, but he closes it, lips drawn back in a line lost in his beard. It hits Ben, then, just how old Kenny seems, gray in his beard, lines in his face, and a look in his eyes that have seen too much.

"Thanks," Ben whispers, head bowed. "For saving me back in Savannah. For giving me another chance, even after… everything."

Kenny clasps Ben’s shoulder, firmly, and though he turns his attention back to the others, he nods.

Walter joins them, eventually, joining the others cooking and wrapping his arms around Matthew as Sarah and Sarita taste test breakfast. When Sarah runs upstairs to wake up the rest, Walter breaks himself away from Matthew to walk over to Ben.

"Matthew told me what happened on the bridge. I don't know what I'd do without him - and I wanted to thank you for saving his life," Walter says, and neither of them misses Kenny's short beat of surprise. "You're a good person."

Ben breaks out into a large smile, then.

By the time everyone else joins them for breakfast, he and Kenny are still sitting together, at ease for the first time in a long time. Luke, Nick, and Clementine join them, and Clementine elbows him when she sits next to him. Luke and Nick look surprised when they see him and Kenny together, but even Ben is surprised when Kenny sighs and addresses them.

"Look, Walter and Matthew were kind enough to take me and Sarita in when we needed help. It's not my place to kick you out and - " he looks to Ben and Clementine and back, " - we're here to help, if you need it."

A stunned, yet impressed, silence follows. Kenny claps Ben hard against his back, and Ben has to hold back a wince. "Ben here knows how quick I am to fly off the handle," he says with a laugh. Ben coughs out an awkward, "Yeah," and wishes Kenny had stopped while he was ahead.

"We, uh, appreciate the offer," Luke says, head tilted slightly. "But I think it's better for everyone if we head out, soon. Maybe we'll catch each other north.'

"In Wellington," Kenny supplies, only for Nick to roll his eyes. Though Kenny bristles next to him, he doesn't lash out. "If you leave tomorrow, you'll hit the tail end of the storm."

Luke nods and calls over to Carlos, running the plan by him. Carlos shrugs, but Sarah, next to him, cheers at the idea of staying at least one more day. Down the length of the table, Sarita smiles warmly, and Ben can almost  _feel_ the tension in Kenny’s body leaving.

He still doesn’t know if he’s going to stay at the lodge if Clementine chooses to remain behind, or join the others in their escape from Carver. Thankfully, no one breaches the topic again, and from there, breakfast is a happy affair.

Rebecca, Sarita, and Alvin excuse themselves after breakfast to lounge by the fire, and Ben thinks he catches them asking Sarita for name advice. Walter, Matthew, Carlos, and Sarah head back upstairs, probably to retrieve the book Sarah had been asking Walter about. Kenny invites him, Luke, and Nick to help bring in the rest of the supplies before the storm hits.

The boxes are heavy with food - hopefully something other than peaches and beans - but by Kenny’s disappointed look at them, he isn’t so sure. Despite the hour, the sky is dark with clouds heading swiftly in their direction. The storm itself might hit them later that night, but the wind already threatens to knock Ben over. With the four of them working, they get the rest of the boxes inside just before the first rumble of thunder carries over the mountain.

"I wish we could stay through the winter," Clementine says, sitting near his head as he lies across the length of the table bench. "Do you think it snows here? I've never been skiing."

Ben squirms at the thought of being so high up - and willingly falling.  _I think I hurt my leg_ , rings in his head.

"Maybe next time," he says, yawning. "How about sledding, first?"

She nods. "I've never been sledding, either."

His eyes drift closed, until a loud clanking noise hits the table above him. He sits up instantly, searching for the source, and sees Nick, Luke, and Kenny standing around Clementine’s pink backpack.

"How many jars did you take, Nick?" Luke asks, pulling out one after another.

"And why?" Kenny adds, staring. "Clementine, you let him put all that in your backpack?"

She shrugs. "I wasn’t carrying anything else. Plus it made a pretty cool weapon when he smashed one against a walker’s head." Across the table, Nick grins at the memory and arranges the jars before him.

"If anything, we can burn some of it," Nick says. "But we can at least have a few before we have to be on the road again."

Luke sighs and leaves briefly before returning with an arm full of water bottles. "Fine, but I am  _not_ having a hangover in the morning."

Kenny looks skeptical, and Ben can’t help but remember how much he drunk when they got to Savannah, when things started taking a turn for the worst. As it ends up, Luke and Nick are really the only two that begin drinking. He, Kenny, and Clementine remain sober, alternating between rolling their eyes and laughing at some of the memories the two friends bring up between them.

It isn’t long before Nick offers him a drink, grin permanently plastered on his face. "Come  _on_ , you might as well. We’re not going to get another opportunity like this," he says, bobbing the jar in front of him.

" _Probably_ ," Luke mumbles before taking a swig from his own jar.

Ben begins to reach out, and for a half second he imagines Lee glaring at him. "I don’t know."

"Just one drink!" When Ben remains silent, Nick turns to Clementine. "One sip. It'll be your first and last."

Clementine shrugs and takes it, and at that, Ben gestures for Luke’s jar as well. Together, he and Clementine take their first sips of whiskey and come out coughing for it. Luke, Nick, and even Kenny begin laughing, and it’s difficult not to join in.

Kenny’s the one to call it when they finish their jars, and Nick and Luke don’t argue. He brings them fresh bottles of water when theirs run dry, as well. The rest of the jars join the boxes around the cupboards of the small kitchen, leaving Clementine’s backpack empty other than actual supplies.

Ben blinks around his drowsiness, suddenly remembering what she _usually_ kept in her backpack. He stands up for a moment, pulling the folded, water damaged photo out of his pocket. With the excitement surrounding the past week, he had forgotten he even found it.

When he hands the photo over to Clementine, she gasps and wraps her arms around him in a tight hug. He returns it, and in the corner of his eye, he thinks he sees Kenny smiling at them. 


	17. Chapter 17

Walter, Matthew and Kenny return from their surveillance of the lodge. After they had gone outside, Matthew had briefly returned, taken a box of food, claimed a woman passing through needed it, and left. They begin lighting candles around the lodge - enough to dimly light the inside, but not enough to be seen from far away.

"The storm's coming," Walter says, lighting a candle on the table near Ben. "We wouldn't want anyone to get scared if the power suddenly goes out."

The wind from the storm howls against the walls of the lodge, loud enough that everyone simply keeps quiet rather than talk over it. Thunder continues to rumble just outside, and the full brunt of the storm is probably minutes away from hitting them. They turn most of the lights off, and without the constant, calming presence of the orchestral CD playing, the atmosphere in the lodge becomes positively eerie.

Sarah draws closer to her dad and Clementine wakes from her nap when the wind turbine outside begins to shudder and creak loudly. The wind is strong enough that they can hear the turbine blades cutting through it, a deep, metallic whirring that probably carries down the mountain.

Kenny figures as much, and soon he, Walter, and Matthew venture outside in an attempt to turn it off. They take one step outside before Kenny breaks into a run, and Walter and Matthew inform the others that walkers are approaching the lodge before running off after him.

Everyone jumps into motion, though Alvin, Rebecca, and Sarah remain inside the lodge. Nick hands off Pete’s pistol to Ben, and then they see for themselves what awaits them outside.

Walkers pour out from the trees in droves, slowly approaching the lodge, centering around the wind turbine. There’s no way their little group can fight them off, Ben thinks, especially if they stay outside. But if they head  _inside_ , they risk the lodge being overrun completely. He keeps Pete’s pistol close, and manages to shoot a walker that gets too close as they join the others fumbling with the wind turbine.

"It's too dark to see anything," Ben hears Kenny say as they approach them. "I don't even know how to work this thing."

Next to him, Clementine reaches into her pocket and pulls out the lighter Christa had found for her. "Does this help?" she asks, holding it close to the control panel.

Everyone’s blank faces are a definite  _no_ . None of the buttons look familiar to Ben, and he isn’t sure the large, red button in the center wouldn’t make it spin  _faster_ or blow the thing up entirely. In all, he isn’t willing to risk it.

The echo of a loud pop reaches them, and Ben immediately raises his hands over his head.

"Relax," Kenny says. "That was probably just the generator." They turn to the lodge, near pitch black save for the dim light of the few candles they had lit. "We're gonna have to go fix it."

Luke volunteers, as does Sarita, but Kenny leaves her behind for her safety. Nick takes a step forward to follow, but ends up staying. It still leaves them with the problem of the turbine, and the walkers closing in. Walter, Matthew, and Nick immediately form a perimeter around the turbine, leaving him, Clementine, Carlos, and Sarita staring at the control panel.

"Does anyone know how shut this thing down?" Carlos asks, a look of confusion illuminated by fire light. Ben and Sarita shake their heads, scanning over buttons and knobs for something that clearly says  _off_. Nothing does.

"I think I can," says Clementine, walking closer. At everyone's skeptic looks, even Ben's, she clarifies: "My dad was an engineer. He used to show me stuff. I'm pretty sure I can do it."

It reminds him of his parents - his mom the train engineer and the mini train sets they used to buy him for him to set up. Ultimately, he, Carlos, and Sarita leave Clementine to it, joining the others in a circle around the turbine. He and Nick pick off the walkers coming from the woods while the others cover their flanks.

A moment later, the wind turbine dies down, and the loud whirring of the blades leave only the low moans of walkers in their wake. Eventually, half of them are forced to run to the other side of the lodge, to clear the walkers in the area there. Some of the dead have already passed in front of the lodge, thankfully ignoring it for the sounds of gunshots, even as the remainder of the group watches from the large main window.

"Clem, this way," Ben says, grabbing her hand as they move away from the forest. With everyone else gone, a sense of dread washes over him, and he attempts to take Clementine closer to the others.

When a group of walkers wander in their direction, they take shelter behind a rock, and clear them out together. It isn’t a funnel, not like the hallway in the mansion was, and with the walkers shambling back and forth, Ben misses half his shots. Clementine kills most of them by the time both of their guns click empty.

He stands to run, only to see a walker nearly leaning over Clementine with its arms outstretched. He shakes off the immediate urge to freeze and run, instead lunging for the walker, using his pistol to bludgeon it before smashing its head against the rock.

Clementine stares up at him, surprise clear on his face, and Ben can only look down at the blood on his hands and his jacket and the bloody smear the walker left on the rock next to him. His legs begin to go numb, but Clementine ushers him forward, grabbing onto his wrist and pulls him toward the front of the lodge. Walter and Matthew stand in front of the main doors, shooting any walkers that come near.

They’re so close,  _so_ close to the entrance before Matthew calls out to him. By the time he registers it, his leg is already pulled from under him, and he falls face first into the dirt. His body slides backward, and when he rolls over, he sees the upper half of a walker pulling him in.

Ben aims to kick it in the head, but each time it opens its mouth in response, he hits low enough to daze the walker, but not enough to get it to let go. He jams his foot into its neck, but still it reaches forward, mouth open, closer and closer to his leg and even when he throws Pete’s pistol at it, it doesn’t  _stop_ -

a loud bang, and the walker falls forward onto his leg. Though he closes his eyes, Ben doesn’t feel anything. Just a hand under his arm pulling him up, and he opens his eyes to Matthew standing next to him, smoking rifle in hand.

"Thought I'd return the favor," Matthew says, grinning. He retrieves Pete's pistol from where it fell and returns it.

Clementine hugs him, and Matthew leads them back to the lodge, but they all freeze at the sound of more guns around them. The walkers around the rest of the group fall, but Ben is sure none of them own automatic weapons. A handful of shadows emerge from the forest, and the others aim their weapons immediately.

Even from far away, Ben can make out the figure of Carver, a large gun in hand, making his way toward the others. "That’s the guy," he whispers to Matthew and Walter. "That’s the guy we’re running from."

He couldn’t move even if he wanted to, and he watches Carver punch Carlos in the face, hard. Ben tries to grab Sarah when she bolts out of the lodge after her dad, but he can’t make himself stop her. Especially not when Carver turns his head toward the lodge and sees him and Clementine.

Carver and his people herd the rest of them back into the lodge, and when he passes Ben and Clementine, he greets them with a twisted grin. "Good to see you again, Carley, Doug," he says, mockingly, nodding toward both of them before physically pushing them inside.

"Rebecca, Alvin," he says casually, as if his people didn't have guns pointed at them. "You know, it's a good thing I found you. this would have been a horrible place to have your baby. Surrounded by walkers." The woman and two men with him force everyone to line up against the kitchen counter before tying their hands behind their backs. "But with Carlos back at the camp, your baby will be just fine."

"It was you?" Walter whispers, addressing the woman. She frowns slightly before looking away.

"Now," Carver begins, pacing in front of the line. "I'm willing to forgive your transgressions, even for all the pain you've caused us. Because you  _have_ hurt us, deeply." His gaze settles on Alvin for a moment before he continues. "But we are family, all of us, and I cannot, on my good conscience, let you throw away your lives like this. I’m  _saving_ you, from the things out there and worse, and you know it. We can and will move on from this, but know that - "

A gunshot rings out, and the window on the far side shatters as a bullet pierces through it, into the head of the man that had been standing near it. Ben calms himself enough to wonder if it’s Kenny or Luke or both, come to rescue them. But when Carver lifts Walter to his feet by his collar and drags him out in front of the window, Ben wishes they hadn’t.

Matthew cries out an anguished, " _No_ " and runs at Carver, full force, even with his hands tied. He stops short, caught by a bullet to his head, courtesy of the second man. Carver continues, unfazed, holding his own gun against Walter's head.

"Bill,  _don’t do this_ ," Rebecca pleads, inching toward him. The man who shot Matthew aims his gun at her, and she stops.

"We'll go with you!" Alvin says. "Just don't hurt anyone else."

Carver shifts Walter in front of him as he turns to face Alvin, coldly. "Don't tempt me."

Ben thinks he sees Kenny’s hat appear over a gazebo railing, and when another shot comes, lodging itself in the pillar next to Carver, he starts yelling for Kenny to stop. Carver pushes Walter to his knees and aims his gun behind his head, but just as he’s about to pull the trigger, Kenny yells out in surrender.

He appears in the front door, soon after, rifle held aloft, and when the woman takes his gun from him, he puts his hands behind his head. He gets pushed into the empty space next to Ben, previously taken by Matthew, and soon his hands are tied, too.

Carver gives them another speech before getting everyone to their feet. As they walk side by side, Kenny continues to glare at Ben as they’re escorted to a large shipping van. They're forced to leave Matthew’s body behind, and Luke is nowhere to be found.


	18. In Harm's Way

Ben leans and sways with the movement of the van as it jostles with every bump and every hill on the way to Carver’s camp. Wedged between Carlos and Clementine, he tries his best not to lean too heavily on her, which means he ends up throwing most of his weight against Carlos when the van pitches.

But the weight of Kenny’s glare is worse. Ever since the shutter on the van closed, he’s tried his best to avoid looking at Kenny. It’s difficult, though, when Walter keeps asking if he’s okay, if everyone’s okay, and every time Ben lifts his head, he ends up catching Kenny’s eye.

He can’t even hide by putting his head in his hands with them bound.

Once the adrenaline from the night wears off, it doesn’t take long for most of them to fall asleep. The van is cramped, with all of them in there, but they spread out as much as they can to give each other room. As Clementine falls asleep in his lap, he chances a final look at Kenny for the night, only to find him fast asleep, Sarita’s head on his shoulder.

Ben sees Walter watching them, and when Walter turns his gaze toward him… he smiles. It’s soft, barely there, and even for the man who helped him believe in himself, it seems forced. Walter breaks away, stares down at his hands, closes his eyes, and sleeps.

He wonders if Walter still hears the gunshot, still sees Matthew falling to the ground. Ben saved Matthew once, but he wasn’t strong enough to do it again - and he still remembers Doug, shot in front of him as well.

Hands balled into fists, he forces himself to sleep.

In the morning, they break. Carver’s group lets them out of the back of the van, but only a few at a time. A safety measure, they explain, just in case they try to escape again. This said while they're pointing three automatic weapons at them. Alvin and Rebecca leave first. One of Carver’s men - Troy, Carlos says - sits on the back, van shutter half open.

"We could take him," Kenny hisses in a low whisper. "He's not even looking!"

Carlos takes one look outside, at the barrel of Troy’s gun, at Carver and the other woman with their own guns, and shakes his head. "We would leave ourselves open to fire from the rest."

"Not if enough of us take 'em by surprise!"

Kenny quiets when Alvin and Rebecca return, and Carlos doesn’t spare Kenny a look when he and Ben are chosen to leave, next.

"Shouldn't Sarah go with her dad?" Ben suggests, crouched low under the shutter as he jumps out of the van, but Troy hits him in the back with his rifle to get him moving.

They stretch, for a moment, and Ben’s at least glad for the opportunity to stretch his legs. The woman, Bonnie, unties their hands, actually smiling at them as she does it. He glances back at her, before he and Carlos head a short way into the woods, but all she does is frown.

They guard each other while they're out there, both keeping an eye out for walkers. Before they begin to make their way back to the van, Carlos stops him.

"I wanted to thank you," he says. "For watching over Sarah."

Ben shakes his head. "I’m sorry - about the whole picture thing. I didn’t think… she was so excited to take one with Clementine." He doesn’t want to mention the gun, not when she really didn’t do anything with it. Plus, it might get her in even more trouble.

"It… was nice of you," he says after a moment. "If things were different, she could take all of the pictures she wanted. But with Carver and the world like this?" He sighs. "She deserves to be happy about something. Her and Clementine."

Ben agrees. "And thanks for patching Clementine up, I guess."

Carlos actually lets out a short, if harsh, laugh. "I nearly condemned her to die. She’s… very resourceful, that Clementine."

Her _and_ Sarah, considering Clementine had gone to her for help, as well. Carver cuts off the rest of their conversation, yelling at them to hurrying up. Both of them hurry back, and when Sarah and Clementine are next to leave together, he reminds himself that they’re far too young to be so resourceful.

He sighs when they return to the stuffy van, already missing what little wind they had outside. His wrists burn whenever he moves, and the ropes nearly rub them raw. But he swears bonnie tied them more loosely than before, because it’s not nearly as bad.

"We have to fuckin' do  _something_ ," Kenny says, continuing as if they never left.

Nick’s the one to let out an annoyed groan, this time. "The fuck you want us to do? Wave our arms around? Oh wait, we’re  _tied up_."

"Fuck you, kid.  _Ben_ ," Kenny rounds on him. "You know what the St. Johns tried to do when they tied us up, you  _know_ we can’t stay here."

He wasn’t there - not in the meat locker with Kenny and Lee, but he heard what happened. He saw Lilly, after, covered in her dad’s blood. Ben freezes, wondering if Kenny will do the same, here.

"I don't - Kenny, I don't know."

"So you're just going to give up," Kenny says, voice low. "Again. I heard you yelling, after I took that first shot. You gave up." There's something in his eyes that tell him Kenny doesn't _just_ mean at the lodge.

Ben immediately lowers his head; shame builds in his gut and twists, and he wonders if he could bolt outside to wretch without getting shot. He gave up after Matthew was shot. Before that… he could almost believe Kenny and Luke could get them out. But Luke never showed and Kenny - and then  _Matthew. What could I have done?_ he asks himself, over and over.

He should have stopped  _Matthew_  instead of Kenny, then Matthew wouldn’t be  _dead_.

_It’s my fault_.

"Kenny, please," comes Sarita's voice, soft and calm.

"Man, that's not fuckin' fair," Nick says, to his left, just ask Carlos says, "You were the one who shot first."

Kenny ignores everyone. "Clementine told me about some of the things you guys went through - like how you saved her at that gas station - and I actually thought you’d changed. Guess I was wrong."

"That's enough," Walter says, clear and stern. "It's no one  _here’s_ fault."

Still, Ben’s mouth pulls back into a grimace - at Kenny’s words, at himself - but he never looks up. He hears Kenny shift and lean forward, but before Kenny can do anything, they hear a loud slap outside, followed by Carver’s harsh tone.

He’s on his feet before he realizes it, just as Clementine crawls back into the van sporting a red mark on her cheek. Though troy points his gun at him Ben ignores him. Sarah manages to yell at Troy, and Ben pulls her into the van before he can react.

The shutter door closes, and Carver declares they’ve wasted enough time for the morning.

"You okay?" Ben asks as he and Clementine take their seats and Sarah settles back down near her father.

"What did he do to you?" Kenny asks, and Ben ignores just how much softer it is.

"I'm okay," Clementine says, attempting to raise her hand to her cheek. "Carver stopped Troy before he could do anything else." She looks at him, finally, and frowns. "Did he do something to you, too?" His eyes narrow in confusion. "Oh. You just look like you're going to cry."


	19. Chapter 19

Ben thinks he might have preferred it when Kenny was glaring at him, because now he avoids looking at him and it’s like he’s not alive to the man at all.

In the afternoon they stop again, but this time only long enough for Nick and Walter to leave the van. Bonnie’s the only one waiting outside, and she ushers them out calmly. Nick casts Ben a worried glance before heading off with Walter into the woods.

Clementine touches her fingers to her cheek again, and Kenny grumbles something about getting Troy back for hurting her.

"You won't be the only one," Ben says, not looking at him. He feels Kenny's attention on him, anyway. "Troy's the one that killed Matthew."

Kenny swears, and Walter and Nick return to the group draped in silence.

They reach Carver's compound - Howe's Hardware, a sign says - by nightfall, and they’re greeted by even more people armed with automatic weapons. Troy escorts them to the back: the old garden section of the hardware store.

Carver encourages the others to welcome them back to the fold as he speaks over the store intercom. Redemption and salvation and forgiveness - he speaks like a teacher he once had, like a mock parody of the Bible that gave him solace at the Motor Inn. Their group walks through old aisles of the hardware store; guards stand on the shelves and watch them.

Like a funeral procession. Like lambs to the slaughter.

And the yard outside is their freezer, where they’ll stay and work and be fed until Carver has no use for them anymore. Ben doesn’t want this to become another St. John’s dairy.

Just before they enter the yard, Carlos is called away.

"He - he can't go," Sarah says, watching him. "My dad - "

Clementine draws her attention away. "He’ll be back soon, don’t worry. We’re here with you." Sarah nods and thanks her, though she’s noticeably more solemn.

A man meets them when Troy lifts the shutter, after Troy unties their hands. Reggie, he says, and everyone’s eyes immediately go to his missing arm. Rebecca and Alvin express their concerns, and Nick immediately blames himself - though Reggie is kind enough to tell him that if it _were_ Nick’s fault he’d tell him.

Reggie scans over the rest of them, Kenny and Sarita, him and Clementine and Walter. Though his face falls when he notices a few familiar faces missing.

"Where's Pete?" he asks, looking at Nick. "And Luke?"

Ben doesn’t even flinch, this time, when Nick tells Reggie what happened. But he does notice Nick leaves his involvement out of it.

"Sorry, man. That's horrible. I really liked Pete." His voice lowers. "So you think Luke's coming back?"

Kenny grumbles. "He abandoned us back at the lodge. Doubt that guy cares much about you guys now." Sarita hushes him, but Kenny shrugs.

"Well… anyway," Reggie begins, slowly. "Look, give me a few days and I can help you. I'm _really_ close to being let out of the yard. After that, I can make things more comfortable for you guys."

"Comfortable?" Alvin interjects. "I don't think we want to stay here any longer than necessary."

"I am _not_ having my baby in this place."

Reggie sighs. "Look, I know, but - hey, this place isn’t so bad, right? There’s food and shelter and… it’s not _that_ cold."

"But these people," Walter says, "are not people we're safe with."

"Maybe not _you_ , no, but - " Reggie shifts on his feet " - if you guys just don’t cause any trouble for me, I can make it safer for you."

Ben sighs heavily. After what happened at the lodge, he highly doubts it’ll ever be safe for them here. But, unarmed, there’s no way they can get themselves out. Unless they plan on charging out of the place with that weird fish statue in the back, there.

He only notices the others in the yard when one tells them to keep it down. Reggie says the one sleeping is Mike, who’s a dick when he’s tired but also saved his life; the other is Jane, who’s really weird and freaks him out a little.

Ben wants to care but can’t find it in himself to. Really, he’d rather sleep and hope whatever days they spend in this place go by quickly. When everyone disperses from the door, he follows Nick toward the row of beds laid out for them. It doesn’t seem like sleeping will come easily, considering the beds are hard and the sheets thin.

"Man," he says on a sigh. "Even the old beds at the Motor Inn were nicer than this."

Nick laughs as he lifts himself onto one of the higher bunks. "Let me tell you, they haven’t gotten any more comfortable since the last time we were here."

Ben settles himself onto the bed below him. On his side, he watches Clementine poke around the area, and listens as Kenny and Reggie talk. Everyone else sits around the small campfire in the center, either quietly chatting amongst themselves or staring at their hands.

He watches Sarah sit next to and begin talking to Walter.

"Matthew was very nice," she says, frowning. Sarita immediately turns and puts a hand on her shoulder, and Ben guesses she attempts to steer Sarah away from talking about Matthew.

Walter raises a hand to stop her. "It’s okay," he says. "Matthew… _was_ very nice. He was also very fond of you, Sarah."

Sarah nods. "He showed me this book, and I really wanted to read it. He made it sound really interesting."

"Yeah, I remember suggesting it to him, once."

"He told me he read it five times. I do that with all my favorite books."

Walter looks visibly shaken, at that, and dismisses himself with a very soft and calm good night. Sarita slowly draws Sarah toward her when Walter walks away. He takes one of the beds on the far side of the yard and seems to curl around someone that isn’t there.


	20. Chapter 20

Ben doesn’t know why he expected Carver to be happy. Maybe a little less angry or tense or vengeful (he’s got them all cornered and unarmed, so why bother), but that doesn’t seem to be the kind of man Carver is.

Carver greets him with a cold, "Good morning, Benjamin."

Ben sets his jaw and forces himself to stare Carver in the eye. But when the man takes a step forward, Ben backs down.

"Be good," Clementine whispers next to him, and it's like a kick in the gut.

Troy and another woman flank Carver, and then their boss gives the rest of them their assignments for the day. And there’s little else any of them can do except obey, or maybe hope that Luke will fall from the ceiling and save them.

Seconds tick by and, unfortunately, Carver’s still talking.

Sarah sidles up next to Ben and tugs on his arm to get his attention. "Did you sleep okay?"

Just before he looks down at her, he catches Carver staring at the both of them. He mumbles a quick  _yes_ , hoping it’ll suffice. It doesn’t.

"Oh," Sarah continues. "I didn't. The beds here aren't as comfortable as the ones at the lodge - "

"Kid, you better shut the fuck up if you know what's good for you," Troy shouts over her.

Rebecca and Sarita immediately come to her defense. Ben feels Sarah leave his side to go to her father, but still he moves just enough to put himself between her and Troy. Troy furrows his brows and takes a step toward the women, but Carver puts his hand out to stop him.

"We're not here to fight. But if this attitude keeps up, it'll only end up hurting everyone - and I'm sure none of us want that." Ben catches the second of a smile he sends at Clementine before he looks down at Sarah. "Now, Sarah." She squeaks out a small  _yes?_  "Do not interrupt me again. It’s disrespectful and I do  _not_  like being disrespected. Do you understand me?" She nods.

Next, he looks up at Ben, and even though Carver is a head smaller than him, the calm grin carver gives him makes him nervous. "The same goes for you, as well. I'm in charge here, and you need to respect that."

Ben nods and bows his head, and from there the rest of the morning goes smoothly. Carver even commends Reggie on keeping the rest of the group calm for the night. Except Carver calls Clementine into his office, and Ben has to work outside with Mike, Kenny, and Nick.

He  _doesn’t_ like the way Carver treats Clementine - not that he’s mean to her, but the fact that he separates Clementine from the rest of them any time he can get -

Nick elbows him, just as Ben almost smashes his own finger with a hammer. "I’m sure Clem’s fine, man. There’s no way she’ll let Carver do anything to her."

He actually hits the nail the next time he swings. "That’s not what I'm worried about. Did you see the way he looked at her? Something’s up, and I don’t like it."

"Wouldn't put it past Carver to try to recruit her. Still, she wouldn't fall for it, would she?"

She should know better, now, but she’s still a kid. Still idealistic, if Carver makes the right promises. If Nick’s group had been fooled by him once, Clementine might be at the same risk. Ben's silence causes Nick to sigh.

Neither of them pick up their tools again, despite the fact that they were ordered to barricade the new room of the expansion by the end of the day. Between the four of them, they’ve managed to border two of the large windows, enough to stop walkers from breaking in. But even over the loud banging of their hammers, they can hear the walkers pounding against the windows and the fence outside.

More than once they’ve had to run toward the boards to quickly nail them back in, and Kenny says the reason the boards aren’t staying is because the nails are too short for the boards they’re using. It’s enough to keep them up as long as nothing hits them, but the sound of their working has been drawing walkers all day.

And with Nick and Ben too worried to work, the walkers pounding on the windows are louder than ever.

"What the fuck are we still doing here? We shouldn't be helping these fuckers, we should be trying to  _escape_."

"And how do you think we're gonna do that? Walk outta here with our little hammers and  _hope_  they don’t shoot us as we get away?"

Kenny throws his own hammer and pushes Mike away from their workbench. "I just know I am  _done_  helping them with their little… expansion project. Not after what they’ve done to us."

Mike pushes him back. "Yeah? Well think of what else they’ll do if they don’t see this finished."

Ben and Nick have to rush forward when Kenny slams Mike up against the boarded windows. Ben tries to pull Kenny away while Nick puts himself between them. "Just stop!" Ben grits his teeth as Kenny continues to struggle. "This isn’t going to help."

Kenny breaks out of his hold and whirls on him. "What do you expect me to do then,  _Ben_? Just sit back and let them walk all over me? Act like  _you_?"

"Man, the kid's got a point," Mike says, pulling himself away from the window. "You want to get out? You make a fucking plan, not just beat your way through."

Kenny closes his eyes and clenches his fists, but before he can respond, Mike slides completely away from the window, taking the board with him. He scrambles away with a shout, Nick behind him, and the walkers that had been previously trying to get in finally find their entrance.

Kenny picks up his thrown hammer and smashes in the first walker’s face that shuffles close behind Nick. With their tools-turned-weapons, Mike and Kenny manage to keep more walkers from pouring in. Ben and Nick take care of any others that slip through, stomping on their heads when they fall.

The board next to Ben falls off the window, and more walkers begin crawling through the windows. Mike and Kenny shift to take care of the new openings, but Ben and Nick fall behind with their own defenses.

As long as they keep the walkers off Kenny and Mike, the two of them can handle themselves. Ben spots their hammers, still on their workbench, and gestures for Nick to fall back with him.

However, Ben doesn't account for a bubble in the extension cord behind him, and when he takes a step back his shoe gets caught; he trips, and when the cord jerks forward, so does the heavy work light attached to it. When it falls, it pins Ben underneath it. He rolls over on his stomach and moves to slide out from under the light, but a walker claws at his leg and attempts to climb over him.

It groans and leans down to bite him, but he manages to keep it just far enough away. Over the walker’s shoulder he sees another coming closer, and it’s here he thinks he’ll die. Pinned under a light and eaten alive.

Something heavy falls with a thud next to his feet, and the next moment, a hammer swings over him, connecting with the walker’s head. He sighs in relief when Nick offers his hand and pulls him to his feet. Right where his leg was lies a walker with an arrow straight through its skull.

Ben looks up, for a moment believing Pete's standing right there, only for his other savior to be  _Troy_. From the look on Nick’s face, and the way he eyes the crossbow in Troy’s hands, he thought the same thing.

"Can't do anything right, can you?" Troy growls, looking between the two of them. He walks behind them and ushers them forward, crossbow at their back. "Maybe with less people here they'll have less time to fuck around." He practically shoves them out the door. "Go help the girls. That work should suit you better."

Ben and Nick flinch when the door slams behind them, but at least Troy doesn't follow them out. They can still hear him yelling at Kenny and Mike through the open windows. The openings are piled high with walkers, something they’ll have to clean out in the morning, no doubt.

"That was Pete's," Nick says hollowly. "That was Pete's crossbow."

Ben swears. He doubts they could get it back, but with the way Nick shuts down, he sincerely  _wants_  to. For now, he puts his hand on Nick’s back and begins walking toward the entrance to the main compound.

Above him, he thinks he hears voices arguing. Someone yells, and Ben sees something fall from the roof just before Nick jerks him to his right, into an abandoned store.

He can still hear the wet sound of the impact, even over Nick’s hushed, "I  _knew_  you wouldn’t leave us."


	21. Chapter 21

The Luke that stands in front of him isn't the Luke he shared drinks with the other night. The Luke that stands in front of him pitches and sways like the moving van through the mountains and wears bruises under his eyes that make him look sick and infected already. But Ben doesn't see any blood on him, or any indication of being bit, and Nick doesn't say anything as he sits next to his friend.

Luke leans his head back against the counter behind him and exhales a heavy sigh. Ben crosses his arms.

"You look like shit," he says, staring down at Luke. Luke tries to glare at him, but he sways into Nick and nearly falls when he begins to stand.

"Well, thank you, for that. I - I really appreciate your input right now, Ben, I do, but we have more important things to deal with." He shakes his head when he finally stands and, up close, Ben can see how bad he  _really_ looks.

"Are you - are you feeling all right?" he asks, snapping Luke out of whatever daze he's slipped into.

"Yeah... don't worry about me. I just - just haven't slept, you know, since... since the lodge. You know I didn't leave you guys, right? That I didn't - abandon you, or anything."

Ben nods, shakily, looking behind Luke at Nick. Nick had  _insisted_ Luke was coming, was going to save them at any moment, that he didn't want to  _sleep_ and miss it. He only stopped when Kenny told him to shut up and rest. And since then he's been quiet, until now.

Ben hadn't been sure, not really. Not when Kenny showed up and Luke didn't. Not after Kenny told him to stop thinking Luke was coming to save them, not after he said Luke had run off somewhere.

Nick practically glows with hope, now.

"Sure," he says, finally, after Luke grips his arms. "But what are we going to do, now? We're trapped."

Luke releases him and wanders off - or more in a circle, like he's lost. "Look it's not that bad, all right? I just need you to get me a walkie talkie - all of Carver's guards have them, and if I can get one I can tell you guys where they are, and when it's safe so everyone can sneak out."

"Is that what you did last time?" Ben asks. Reggie had mentioned something about falling and being left behind the last time they escaped. He wonders if they'll have to do the same.

"N- nah. Things were a little different then." He sighs, again. "Look, can you just do this? Just get a pair of walkie talkies. They're usually kept in the storeroom, in the back."

Ben's shoulders slump. "What about the walkers outside? It was bad enough just in that room."

"I know, I heard. If we leave quick enough, we won't have to deal with them. Because there is - there's a whole herd coming, and I don't want to get stuck in the middle of that. So we have to be quick about this, got it?"

Ben would rather talk with everyone else and come up with a plan together, but Nick interjects an eager, "Yes," and that ends the matter.

Someone bangs on the door, causing all three of them to jump. "You two better come out because I am  _not_ walking in on anything, you hear me?"

"You two better go. Troy's not gonna wait forever." Ben and Nick nod, but before Luke ducks back behind a comic book shelf, he stops them. "By the way, I haven't seen Clem anywhere. She's safe, right?"

Ben grimaces, and it's enough for Luke to swear and go back into hiding.

When they leave the comic book store, Troy looks between him and Nick with disgust before shoving the crossbow at their backs, once more forcing them to walk back to the compound.

Something fell, Ben remembers, and once he looks around he wishes he hadn't. Just on the other side of the fence lies Reggie, broken and bloody like a smashed pumpkin after Halloween.

Ben covers his mouth and chokes out,  _oh my god_ before Troy yells at him again.

When they get back to the yard, Ben can't speak. Every time he tries, he sees Reggie, what was left of his mouth open wide in either shock or caught in his last scream. His eyes were wide open; the last thing he must have seen was the ground rushing up to meet him, and Ben wonders if he felt the impact at all. Or if it just  _ended_.

Or if he looked up at whoever was on the roof, face half caved in from the fall, and asked them to end it.

"Tell me that wasn't Reggie," Nick says hoarsely. "Please tell me that wasn't - " he stops himself, swallowing heavily.

They weren't supposed to get him in  _trouble_.

That's how the others find them, when they return to the yard for the night. Nick with a hand on Ben's back, and Ben trying to forget every single detail.

Rebecca asks after them, and Nick somehow manages to explain, though a little... cleaner, when they look up and see Sarah standing in the doorway. Though, as Nick finishes informing everyone about Reggie, they see her eyes are downcast, and she holds her arms close to her sides, trying to make herself as small as possible.

"Sarah, honey," Rebecca says, leaning down as much as she can. "What's wrong?"

"I s-saw him." Rebecca gently prompts her to continue. "I saw Carver push Reggie off the roof."

She buries her head against Rebecca's side just as Mike says, "That settles it. We go with that guy’s plan."

"Luke found you guys, too?" Nick says, quietly, looking through the slits in the shutter for any passing guards. Mike and Kenny nod, and they quickly inform the others of Luke's plan. "So someone just needs to steal the walkie talkies."

"They always keep the radios in storage. Someone just has to sneak in there and get them," Alvin suggests.

Mike and Kenny look to Sarah, the only one small enough to sneak around without getting caught, but Rebecca and Sarita block them with a resounding  _no_.

"Well, what else can we do? Where's Clementine?" Kenny asks, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

The shutter opens, and everyone turns, expecting her to walk in on cue. Instead, it’s Carlos, who takes his shaking daughter into his arms. "Clementine is with Carver. She’s been with him most of the day."

Ben frowns. It's like the guy who kidnapped her all over again - he wasn’t watching her and someone took her away…

"Bonnie," Walter says. "She just might be on our side. If we tell her about Reggie, I have no doubt she'll help us."

Everyone agrees. With no better plan, it’s all they have. But when everyone heads back to the bunks, Kenny walks toward Ben, stopping just in front of his chair.

"What if she doesn't want to come with us?" he asks, voice low and the most solemn he's heard in a long time.

Ben shakes his head. "Carver got into her head, that’s all. But she’s still our friend," he says, looking up at Kenny. "And we don’t leave friends behind."


	22. Chapter 22

He dreams he’s on that goat farm, cleaning the house of the old couple that owns it (they’re just as hospitable as the St. Johns were, with the added bonus of not being cannibals). It’s peaceful and quiet with only the chirping of birds and soft bleating of the farm’s signature animals around him. No car horns, no loud music, just a sweet old lady humming some song.

Once, he told Lee that he and his friends used to go out into the city because, after all, what was in Macon? The more he thinks about it, the more he likes Macon - or, at least, what it was.

Anything would be better than the stress of everything, now.

One of the goats is missing, the old man says, throwing open the door of the house. The old woman gasps, and Ben goes with the old man to look for the goat. Turns out, it’s one of the babies, born only a few weeks ago.

They chase the animal into the woods and to a clearing, but when they emerge from the trees, someone in a large coat stands over the kid. The stranger raises their head, growling, blood and flesh around their mouth and in their hands, and when Ben opens his mouth to scream, the old man sinks his teeth into Ben's neck.

He wakes with a start, heart beating hard against his chest. Everyone else is still sleeping, so he carefully slides himself out from his bunk and stares out at the small line of sky he can see from the yard. Troy will come in another hour or so to wake the others; Nick always wakes him before Troy arrives, saying, "He'll kick you awake if you aren't up the second he gets here."

But, now, Nick is sleeping, far more soundly than he had the other night, and Ben will be the one to save him from Troy in the morning.

-

Ben gets assigned to help Rebecca, Sarah, and Sarita load magazines with Bonnie while Nick helps Jane and Walter supply the greenhouse. Mike and Kenny return to building the expansion, hounded closely by Troy. Carlos and Alvin are shepherded away by Carver once again.

The storeroom is nothing but an echo of  _click, click, click_ as everyone pops the bullets into place. Sarah moves more slowly than the rest of them, but Bonnie just gives her an encouraging smile every time finishes a magazine.

"Is she all right?" he hears Bonnie ask Rebecca. Rebecca shoots the rest of them a look; Ben and Sarita give her short nods.

"I think she's still a little disturbed by what Carver did," she says. At once, Ben and Sarita cease their work, but Sarah keeps going, mechanically filling her magazine, a drone of  _click_ …  _click_ … _click_. Bonnie glances at Sarah, but prompts Rebecca to continue.

"He pushed Reggie," Sarah says. "Carver pushed Reggie off the roof and he - and he - "

And his body broke and they removed it later that evening, no doubt shooting him in the head for good measure. Rebecca offers her hand for Sarah to cling to when the magazine clatters to the floor, and Sarita leans over to rub circles against her back.

Bonnie’s mouth thins into a straight line. "Rebecca, I don’t know what happened to him. But after y’all left he just got worse." She sighs. "And after what Troy did to your friend - Bill didn’t even bat an eye."

"Bonnie, we need your help." Rebecca places a hand on her stomach and, after a short moment, continues. "Luke's here - " Bonnie's eyes widen " - and he needs us to get him a radio so he can help us get out. Can you get us one?"

"I - I don't… I don't know. What if y'all get caught?"

"We will not mention you," Sarita says.

She bows her head. "And if it works?"

"Come with us."

"You said yourself it isn't safe here anymore. Sarita's right - come with us," Rebecca adds.

"Please," says Sarah, quiet and earnest.

At that, Bonnie crumbles. "Well, I can’t say no to you, darlin' - "

"Say no to what?" a woman asks from the doorway. Bonnie stands with a startled, "Tavia!" but manages to compose herself soon after.

"Rebecca - Rebecca just asked for a bottle of water, and Sarah wanted a break, that's all. They've been working hard all day, so I thought they'd earned it."

Tavia shrugs and nods. "This store room is stuffy anyway. Look, I'll get you your bottle of water," she says to Rebecca. "Just don’t let Carver catch you slacking. No wonder what he’ll do."

Tavia leaves and they lapse into silence. Ben knows exactly what Carver would do - line them all up outside and kill them for being useless, no doubt. Immediately, he returns to filling his magazine, hoping at least some noise will make Carver think they’re still working. The rest of them follow suit after Tavia returns with Rebecca's bottle of water and leaves.

Bonnie lets out a drawn sigh. "I  _am_ sorry about your friend,  _truly_ sorry. Everything got so out of hand, I never thought…" She frowns.

"Matthew - the man whom Troy killed - he was Walter's partner," Sarita explains.

Bonnie’s breath hitches. "They gave me food. I lied to them, and they just - just gave me food, no strings attached."

Ben clears his throat, and bonnie looks over to him. "Walter… was the one who suggested we ask you for help in the first place. He - he knew you were a good person."

He sees Bonnie set her jaw and straighten her back. "I'll get you your radios tonight. But it’s up to you to get them to Luke - if I get caught, then I won’t be able to help y’all escape."

Ben leans forward in his chair. "The other little girl we came here with - her name is Clementine. Is she okay?"

"She's… fine." Bonnie grimaces. "Bill's too fond of her to harm her. She asks about you, a lot, actually. But he keeps her busy so she doesn't worry."

"If - when we get ready to leave, could you…?"

She smiles. "I'll be sure to bring her with me."

He sighs in relief, but he still can’t help but wonder if she’ll even come.


	23. Chapter 23

True to her word, Bonnie arrives with two walkie-talkies later that night. But only after the rest of them had to listen to Kenny doubt her and scorn Rebecca for telling her everything. Even Walter and Sarita couldn’t calm him, and it was only a soft tapping against the yard shutter that brought his ranting to an end.

"Either Ben or I can bring the radio to Luke," Nick suggests once they've all gathered around the yard campfire. Rebecca holds the two walkie-talkies as she waits for the plan to be settled.

"I can hide it in my jacket," Ben offers. "It'll be real easy."

"I've seen your  _real easy_ before," Kenny says. "Mike and I are already near where Luke's hiding. We just toss the thing in before that Troy fucker sees us and we’re done."

"And what if someone else finds the radio before Luke does? What if you break it?" Rebecca cuts in, weighing the walkie-talkie in her hand. "We had a few of them break in similar accidents." Kenny's eyes narrow.

"So I'll make sure he  _catches_ it, then. We don’t have any other option here."

"Kenny's right. There's no telling where Carver will put anyone else tomorrow, but he and Mike are always in the expansion," Alvin says. Rebecca sighs and hands over one of the walkie-talkies. Carlos receives the other.

"Please, be careful," Sarita tells both of them. She lowers her voice. "We know what Carver will do if you get caught."

Throw them off the roof? Ben wonders. Maybe have Troy execute them in front of everyone else. Kenny and Mike nod grimly, and Ben tries not to look at Walter and Sarah as everyone retires for the night.

-

Carlos is still in the yard, for once, when Ben wakes up. Nick helps him to his feet just as Troy opens the shutter. As Ben approaches the group listening to Troy’s orders, he catches a glimpse of the walkie-talkie’s antenna sticking out of Kenny's pocket. Ben sidles up between him and Mike, hiding the antenna from Troy’s view.

"You think Carver's gonna let you back into the expansion after you fucked up, kid? Just loading ammo isn't gonna help you win him over." Troy sneers. "You're with Carlos and Alvin today. At least then if you fuck up, you won't hurt anyone  _useful_."

Ben bristles, but keeps his mouth shut. Carlos puts a hand on his shoulder as he leads him to the back of the compound and a small, secluded room.

"What are you always doing back here?" Ben asks, as Carlos hands him and Alvin a pair of gloves. He pulls them on with a loud snap, and for a moment he remembers his old biology labs. Only, he hopes Carver doesn't expect him to dissect anything - or anyone.

Carlos opens the door to a small infirmary, where a few people lie sleeping on makeshift beds. Even though they’re just cots, they still look more comfortable than the beds out in the yard.

"Who're they?" he whispers.

"They're sick," Carlos says. "Not with the infection - " Ben figures everyone knows to by now there's only one way to treat that, horrific as it is " - just the flu."

"The flu," he repeats, flatly.

Alvin sighs. "There are more than armed guards staying here, you know. There are more families than us, only they’ve all made it out of the yard."

Ben freezes in shock and confusion, even as Carlos and Alvin check on the patients. When he looks over the patients again, he sees a kid around his age, an older woman, and a little girl. Carlos asks him to check on the girl; he points out a syringe on a small cart for Ben to use, but before he does he asks, "So you were their doctor, and you just left them? You were okay with that?"

Carlos grumbles as he stands up straight to look Ben in the eye. "There was another doctor that used to work here. But I decided to leave because Carver would have me  _kill_ these people rather than save them. We quarantined them, before, but when Carver changed he said it wasn’t worth the risk of letting the entire compound get sick."

The little syringe in his hand feels all the more heavy. "This won’t - "

"No. Tavia found medicine and I've been treating them using that," Carlos explains.

Still, he returns the syringe to the tray, and instead hands Carlos cotton swabs as he tends to the patients. Ben doesn’t talk to them, just follows Carlos around, but the patients seem to like him well enough despite Carver’s  _rousing_ speech the moment they arrived at the hardware store. They treat the little girl last, and Carlos comforts her with promises she’ll be with her parents soon.

Ben frowns, just slightly, but forces a smile when the little girl looks at him. Alvin and Ben clean up while Carlos finishes giving everyone else the other medicine.

"You mentioned another doctor," Ben says. "But no one else is here."

"That would be my fault," Alvin answers. "He tried to stop us when we were escaping the first time. Wouldn't let Carlos go, said they had to stay and do their jobs." He rubs the back of his neck. "His name was George. I had to kill him so we could get out."

Ben feels his stomach drop but stops himself from taking a step away from Alvin. "So you just - just killed a guy."

"I had to get my family out of here," Alvin says, voice increasing in volume. The patients behind him shift in their beds. "With Carver acting the way he was, none of us were safe - that's why we all decided to leave."

"And everyone else? You just left them?"

"We couldn't trust anyone else. Look, I didn't want to kill George; he was my friend, too. But he wasn't gonna let us leave, and that was as good as getting us killed."

Ben nods, almost understanding. Lee had chosen not to leave Lilly behind, and she ended up stealing the RV with what little supplies they had left. But  _murder_ -

The door behind him opens with a rush and slams against the wall. Troy calls them back to the yard - on Carver’s orders. He stands just outside the door, waiting, and Ben shoots Carlos and Alvin a look of confusion and worry.

Carlos slightly pulls one of the walkie-talkies out of his pocket, and Ben desperately hopes he isn’t right.


	24. Chapter 24

Troy opens the yard shutter to the repeated sounds of heavy thudding, of harsh grunting, and high pained whines and hisses. Ben and Carlos almost duck under the shutter rather than wait for it to open, but when they see why, they freeze.

Luke coughs once, twice, but otherwise barely moves to remove Carver’s foot from pressing down hard against his chest.

Carver looks up at them and lets out a disappointed sigh. He pulls his foot away and brushes his hands against his jeans, though his knuckles remain stained with Luke's blood.

"I gave you all a chance," he says, arms outstretched. "I allowed you to return, against the other's wishes. I gave you food, water, shelter.  _Purpose_. And this - " he kicks Luke in the ribs, causing him to roll over in pain " - is how you repay me?"

Carlos slowly makes his way toward Luke, Carver watching him as he does. His gaze snaps to Ben once he approaches. "You should be thankful I didn’t bring Clementine with me. For her to see her friends acting out in disobedience, she would be so… disappointed in you."

"Leave Clementine out of it," Ben growls, clenching his fists. "She's been through enough. She doesn't deserve to be manipulated by you, too."

Carver scoffs. "Have you done any better in protecting her?" Ben reels, but continues to glare. "So where are they?"

"Where are  _what_?" asks Alvin, arms folded, as he stands next to Carlos.

"You know what I'm talking about." Carver walks around Luke to stand in front of Carlos. "Hand it over." When he doesn't, Carver reaches around to Carlos's pocket and pulls out the walkie-talkie.  "Thank you," he says, and walks back to the middle of the yard.

Carlos grumbles, but kneels next to Luke and helps him sit up. There’s little else they can do - there’s no way Carver will let them get supplies to treat Luke. If only they had pocketed some, just in case. Ben wraps his arms around himself and shifts on his feet. Carver glares and waits.

Everyone else eventually files in, followed by Tavia. She takes one look and Luke and grimaces, and Nick runs to his friend’s side. Kenny and Mike flank Ben when they arrive. "We couldn’t find him in the comic store," Kenny whispers. "Thought he flaked, but - shit."

"He found the walkie-talkie on Carlos," Ben says, jerking his head toward Carver. "Do you still have - ?" He glances down, and there's the antenna sticking out of Kenny's pocket, barely covered by his arm. "He's gonna want that back."

"No  _shit_."

"What do we do now?" Mike asks, but Ben and Kenny shake their heads. Carver silences them with only a look.

"I have given you  _everything_ ," Carver begins. He drums his fingers against the walkie-talkie in his hand before clenching it tightly in his fist. "A safe place to have a baby, a home, and my  _trust_. And all I asked was that you cooperate. And yet you have endangered your baby, our home, and betrayed my trust. All for  _him_?" Carver sneers at them, but the man in question keeps his gaze firmly on the ground.

"Well, we can't have that, can we? I give you free will and this is what you do with it, so obviously you need me to lead, to be firm. So I'll be firm." He takes a deep breath and exhales calmly. "Where is the other radio?"

"Look, Carver, just - just leave them out of it, okay? This was all me, they had nothing to do with - "

"Do  _you_  have the other radio?" Luke clenches his jaw and looks, again, at the ground. "Then I'm not talking to you, Lucas." He turns to the rest of them. "You have until the count of three to return the radio.  _One._ _"_

Tavia shifts behind them, but Troy glances around the room eagerly, waiting for someone to step up. Ben notices a strange glint in his eyes, something bright and eager and  _gleeful_. Ben doesn’t like the way the corner of his mouth tipped up the moment Carver began counting.

Time condenses to literal seconds, ticking by as Carver counts and waits and stares and waits, and Ben doesn’t know if Kenny's going to admit to having the walkie-talkie or if he’s going to rat out Bonnie or charge Carver himself. But the man next to him is stone, as strong and stoic as a statue.

Ben glances at Luke, who tries to stand, but ends up hissing in pain instead and leans against Carlos and Nick at his back. Sarah hides behind her father, and Alvin and Sarita are already shielding Rebecca. Mike stares at Kenny to his right, and Walter never takes his eyes off Troy.

_Two_.

Now or never, now or never. Ben unwraps his arms and clenches his fists at his sides. Carver  _killed_  Reggie. murdered him, right in front of Sarah, when he hadn’t done anything wrong. Who knows what he’ll do to any of them? The same?  _Worse_?

His mind whirs and spins and plays through every scenario he can think of in a matter of milliseconds. Kenny's arm brushes against his, and that’s when his mind stops. He pulls the walkie-talkie out of his pocket and takes a step forward.

Ben snatches it out of his hand and pulls himself out of Kenny's grip when the man grabs his jacket. He doesn’t look back. Instead, he glares at Carver as he walks up to him, even as he hears Troy’s short laugh, even as Carver smiles calmly all the while. He drops the walkie-talkie in Carver’s outstretched hand just as he calls out, " _Three_."

Time stops when Carver’s smile falls, and whatever kind of man Carver actually is shines through. He grabs Ben by the collar of his jacket, and though he hears someone cry out, Ben doesn’t even feel the first blow.

Or the next. Or the one he's sure comes after that. He watches Carver's fist pull back each time, and soon he can’t even see the growing puddle of blood on the ground under him.


	25. Chapter 25

****

Travis really should have kept his mouth shut, but he’s always been so proud of his dad being in the special forces, he can never shut up about it. He pretends he can do anything, fix anything and, a lot of the time, say anything he wants.

Ben stops listening whenever Travis uses his dad as an excuse; a lot of people can’t stand him, either way. That’s why Ben's his best friend; that’s why Ben, even if he gets annoyed sometimes, stands up for him when others snap. They don’t know Travis hasn’t seen his dad in a while.

So when the local bully starts taunting him, starts making fun of Travis and his "daddy issues," of course Ben isn’t going to just… let it go. Travis is his friend, and he puts himself between Travis and the guy without really thinking through the consequences.

Then, he didn’t really feel the beating, either. Maybe the first swing, but after that he got used to it. He vaguely remembers waking up staring at the sky, his entire body on fire and listening as Travis practically crying while calling Ben's mom.

His mom is dead. So’s Travis. and - and  _he_ must be dead, because don’t they say your life flashes before your eyes when you die? And here he is reliving one of the more painful parts. At least, before the apocalypse.

If he’s dead, at least he knows Clementine has Kenny to watch over her. And Sarita, and Bonnie, and Walter, and the others from the cabin. She’ll be all right, and that’s… comforting. Nothing will hurt anymore; he doesn’t have to see anyone else die.

But he doesn’t  _want_ to be dead. He isn’t ready. not now, not - for a while, hopefully. But he doesn’t even remember saying  _goodbye_.

He tries to move his arm, but it feels like he’s submerged underwater, his entire body made of lead, and the only thing he has are his thoughts and the blood pumping loudly in his ears.

Light breaks through whatever darkness he’s in, spreading and glittering in little streams, like the sun reflecting on water. There’s a high pitched keening that rings in his ears, and he pushes toward the surface just to make it stop, to save himself from drowning.

It hurts.  _Everything_ hurts. From his feet, to his legs, deep in his chest, and his entire  _face_. Everything burns; some parts simmer, deep stinging pains that would make him claw at his skin if he could move his arms, but others sear into his skin and linger.

Breathing is hard. Every little breath seems to agitate the stinging but it soothes him just to know he’s  _alive_. Slowly, he moves his hand to touch his eye, where most of the pain seems to stem from, but a hand on his arm stops him.

"Don't touch it, you might upset the bandages," someone says. He finally opens his eyes, and sees Carlos standing next to the table Ben's lying on. "And you should probably be resting."

"We don't have  _time_ to rest, Carlos, not if we want to leave tonight," Luke cuts in. He’s somewhere behind Ben, his voice harsh and tired and angry, but it all sounds muffled to him.

Nick approaches him, thankfully putting himself in front of Ben instead of next to him. It’s easier to see him, that way. "I didn’t - fuck, man, we didn’t think you were going to make it."

"Really?"

"You've been out for  _hours_. Shit, if.. if Bonnie and Clementine hadn’t arrived when they did I don’t think - " Nick stops himself when he sees Sarah walk over "Even Carlos was worried about you."

The fact that he barely remembers it worries him. Carlos lets out a short huff, and otherwise busies himself with adjusting Ben's bandages. He hisses when the gauze brushes hard against his eye, but Carlos just sighs.

"Clementine - she was here? She saw?" Ben asks, finally.

"She looked really sad when she saw you," Sarah says. "But she left with Bonnie after Kenny and dad moved you to the table."

Nick suddenly frowns, looking serious. "We’re leaving this place tonight. That’s what everyone decided on. It’s a good thing you woke up when you did, or we would’ve had to carry you out."

Nick’s voice wavers, just a little, and Ben thinks they probably would have left him behind, instead. "Bonnie and Clementine are going to help us get out!" Sarah tells him. "So we’ll all be okay."

Ben tries to nod, and when he forgets to bring his head back up, Carlos tells nick and Sarah to give Ben some room. He doesn’t want them to go, but with his head as heavy as it is, it’s difficult keeping up. Hours - he’s missed so much. So much carried on without him.

"You probably have a concussion," Carlos says coolly. "But with everything going on, there's little we can do for it. I've asked bonnie to grab some medicine, for the pain."

"Thank you."

Carlos leaves him, taking a mess of bloody bandages with him, and it’s hard to believe it’s his blood. The thought makes his head swim even more, so he closes his eyes and breathes. Slow and steady, just like mom told him.

"You knew exactly what he would do to you," Kenny says, suddenly next to him. But there's no anger in his voice, for once. Maybe surprised recognition. "Why'd you give him the radio?"

"There was nothing else we could have done; he would have hurt every last one of us if he didn't get that walkie-talkie back."

He winces, expecting Kenny to accuse him of giving up again. But Kenny just grips the side of the table, hard enough to make it shudder, and bows his head. "Why did  _you_ give him the radio?"

Ben grimaces. Out of the corner of his good eye, he sees the others begin to move, and Nick waves them over. He swings his legs off the table, and he would have toppled over if it wasn’t for Kenny grabbing him. He holds on until he’s steady enough on his own two feet.

Kenny helps him over to the others, but looks at him like he’s still expecting an answer. Ben knows exactly why he did it, but it’s still difficult for him to say, even more to  _admit_.

"Luke was already beaten pretty badly, y'know? And… the group couldn't afford to let it happen to you, too."

Kenny grunts, and anything he could have said is cut off by an automated voice blaring over the loudspeakers outside the hardware store. A moment later, the yard shutter opens with Bonnie and Clementine waiting for them on the other side.


	26. Chapter 26

Clementine walks up to him the moment the shutter opens fully; with her hands folded in front of her and her gaze turned low, it’s the smallest she’s seemed since… Savannah. Not since then has she looked so guilty.

"I'm sorry," she says, looking up with her mouth twisted in a frown. "I thought Carver - he said he wouldn't hurt anyone." When she looks down again and her little shoulders begin shaking, Ben kneels. "I thought you'd - you'd leave me behind. That it would be like Lilly."

He hugs her briefly and whispers, "We don't leave friends behind." She clings to him tightly.

"Look, I know you're happy to see each other, but if you  _actually_  want to leave we should probably go." Jane walks past him and Clementine and waits for them halfway toward the storeroom. Clementine pulls away, and Ben stands to follow.

The whole plan hadn't really been explained to him before Clementine and bonnie arrived, but apparently Jane had decided to join them during the time he was unconscious. He hasn't talked to her much - or at all - but any help will be welcome.

"She's right," Luke says, walking stiffly in the same direction. "We need to move.  _Now_."

Ben sighs, but when everyone begins moving again, everyone is just as welcoming to Clementine. Kenny and Sarita smile at her as he motions for them both to move, and she falls into step next to Sarah. Rebecca lets out a low moan behind them, and Alvin has his arm around her as he guides her forward. Ben begins to walk next to Rebecca, but bonnie taps him on the shoulder; she holds out a pair of pills in her hand.

"Carlos told me to grab some painkillers for y'all." She looks toward Jane and Luke, the latter still holding his broken ribs. Ben walks with her after the others. "Bill... really did a number on you, didn't he?"

Ben nods. "Nick said... that if you two hadn't shown up when you did, then I might not've - that Carver would've - "

Bonnie frowns and stares forward, and Ben shudders. He would never have woken up. He would've been... nothing but a bloody mess on the yard floor, like Reggie. Another warning to the others not to step out of line again.

"Would I have been shot? When - when I didn't wake up, would someone have made sure to shoot me?"

"That's... that's a little morbid, y'think?"

He remains silent, but still it bothers him. What if Carver had left his body there and left the others to take care of it? What if... what if he  _bit_ someone? And - and in order to kill walkers, their brain has to be destroyed so what if - what if he knew  _exactly_ what was going on, but couldn't stop himself?

He quickly swallows the pills Bonnie gave him when he begins swaying on his feet. Ben catches her staring, and once he does she readjusts her backpack and walks ahead of him.

None of the guards that were present the first night they arrived are standing watch now, but maybe Carver was just using them as a scare tactic then. The aisles are empty save for bag upon bag of preserved foods; for a moment, he remembers the many boxes of canned peaches and beans at the lodge. If they weren't running for their lives or - or maybe if they could just overthrow Carver instead, they'd have all that food to themselves.

But aside from Luke's machete and a pistol handed to Kenny, they have no weapons to overthrow the other guards.

So when they arrive at the storeroom and prepare to leave, Carver confronting them with an automatic weapon of his own leaves them with little options but to raise their hands in surrender.

Carver looks down to Clementine standing just beside Ben. "It's okay, Clementine. You don't have to pretend to be with them anymore."

She stiffens and doesn't respond. Carver narrows his eyes and begins raising his gun, but Ben steps in front of her and turns on her, hiding his face from Carver's view.

"We  _trusted_ you. And you led us right to him?" Ben says as convincingly as he can. Clementine looks up at him in surprise, and he softens his expression when she does.

She pushes him out of the way, and he pretends to stumble. With Carver's eyes on Clementine, Nick slowly edges next to Ben and hisses, "Tell me this isn't happening." Ben makes himself as calm and still as possible and as betrayed and disappointed as he can muster.

Carver rests his gun by his hip, though still pointed in their direction. "Good to see you recovered, Benjamin." Ben grinds his teeth. "You've got a thicker skull than I thought."

"Just let us go," pleads Sarita. "We've done nothing to you."

"Not  _you_. But  _them_ ," Carver says, pointing at the cabin survivors. "I tried to give them a second chance, after what they did. After they murdered one of their own." He looks at Nick. "Or would that be two?"

" _Nick_ didn't murder anyone," Ben interrupts. The look on Carver's face is enough to swell Ben's confidence. "But you murdered Reggie just because you thought he was useless! The others - the others were trying to protect their families."  


"And what do you think I was doing when I pushed Reggie? Protecting my family."

Before he understands what's happening, Carver stumbles forward, and Kenny steps in front of Ben to punch Carver in the face. Luke manages to disarm him in the melee and, for once, they have the advantage.

_Three moves to checkmate._

Carver makes to lunge at Luke, but Kenny stops him with a pair of bullets to both his legs. While Carver lies in a crumpled heap, blood already soaking through his jeans and pooling around him, the others begin to move toward the loading bay door.

"So what do we do with him, now?" Luke asks. He holds Carver's gun loosely at his side, pointed toward the floor. Ben's eyes shift between it and Kenny's pistol.

"Make sure he doesn't come back for us," Ben says. "They have supplies. He can just fix his legs or have more of his people come after us."

"Hang on. You're not suggesting we - "

"Look at you, Benjamin. All grown up now." Carver laughs, and though Kenny hisses a harsh  _shut up_ , Carver ignores him. "I pegged you as a coward the moment I saw you. Couldn't even look me in the eye like the little girl."

"You manipulated her - "

" - you said you wouldn't hurt my friends!" Clementine finishes.

Even though he took the painkillers just moments ago, he can still feel his head throbbing. Every beat of blood through his veins is a dull, echoing thud in his ears. He looks at Carver with disdain, except the man grins like he's  _won_.

"And look what I did for him!" He doesn't even wince when he shifts himself forward. "I do what I have to, to protect my people. To make them stronger."

"I am  _not_ your people. And you're just... an asshole."

Carver laughs, but his smile turns into a solid glare. "I saved you. All of you. Made you  _better_. And now you're going to follow him - " he looks at Luke, " - but what has he ever done but get others killed?"

Ben had barely noticed Kenny leave his side, but when he returns, it's with a crowbar in hand. "Everyone else head outside. I'll make sure he doesn't follow."

"Whoa, whoa." Luke steps forward. "You can't just - we'll tie him up, okay? We can just tie him up and be on our way, that's all this has to be."

"So he can turn into a walker when this place gets overrun? So he can still hurt others even when he's  _dead_? I'm ending this fucker."

"Kenny," Sarita says, walking up behind him. "Just let Luke tie him up, then we can go."

Kenny shakes his head, not even looking at her. "Sarita, I ain't doing this for _me_."

Ben pales, and the mocking way Carver looks at him only makes it worse. "H-hey, Clem, let’s go. Let’s just go." Clementine gives Carver’s prone body a wide berth as she makes her way back around to Ben; both of them give Carver one last look before making their way toward the bay door. Luke, Nick, and Sarita join them only seconds later.

Ben sits on the ledge over the drop from the door. He can barely hear Kenny and Carver still talking, even over Luke and Jane going over the plan again with everyone else.

They’re to walk through that herd - through what looks like a hundred walkers strong, like a sea of the dead and they’re left without a boat. Again. He grimaces at the idea of  _willingly_  smearing walker guts all over him; the thought of the smell alone makes his stomach churn, but the  _blood_  -

"Shouldn't you go look after your son, Kenneth? Without that eye he might fall - get  _eaten_ ," he hears Carver say, just before the wet sound of Kenny beating Carver with the crowbar overtakes all else.


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the last of episode 3

"There's no end to them," Nick says, voice barely distinguishable above the store loudspeaker, groaning walkers, and rumbles of gunshots from survivors atop the store. "There's just - shit - there's no way we're making it out of this."

Ben breathes heavily, staring dead ahead at the wall of walkers. Nick’s right - they’re not prepared for this. Maybe they can go back inside, close the shutter, turn off the speaker, and wait out the horde — he turns back toward the store room, to Luke and Alvin helping Rebecca down from the loading bay drop. And to Kenny emerging from the shadow of the storeroom, blood covering his shirt and his jacket, bits of gore and hair still clinging to the end of the crowbar in his hand.

_ Your son _ . Ben turns back around, avoiding looking at Kenny, and catches Sarita staring at him out of the corner of her eye, more worried than he’s ever seen her. Still, she moves to help Kenny when he jumps down and struggles to stand, but he waves her off.

"What do we  _ do _ ?" Ben asks.

At that, Jane brushes by him, brandishing a screwdriver in her hand. Clementine follows after her, leaving Ben's side, and pulls a small hatchet from her belt. He takes his eye off Jane completely, watching Clementine as she slowly approaches one of the closer walkers and quickly dispatches it, hatchet blade lodging in the walker’s skull. He hears another bodily thud somewhere to his right - what he assumes is Jane taking out her own walker.

"Sarah, Ben, come here," Clementine orders, and they do. Clementine pulls the hatchet from the walker's skull and cuts into the walker's chest, instead. She slices down from its chest to its stomach, and Ben clenches his teeth together so hard he's sure either his jaw will break or his teeth will shatter. Anything to stop himself from making his own insides come out - or to stop himself from passing out.

_ You’ve been through worse _ , he tells himself, and steels himself as he walks closer to Clementine.

"When lee found me at the Marsh House," she begins, rooting her hands around the walker's insides. He notices she hesitates, only for a second. "We had to walk through a group of walkers, too. And this is how we made it through." She holds out handful of intestines to him, as if it's just dirt or putty or something normal kids would play with. Like the dirt his sister always rubbed all over her face for no reason.

He takes it, stomach churning at the warm feel of it in his hands and the squelching noises it makes when he rubs it against his jacket. It  _ reeks _ like garbage and rot and death.

Sarah takes to it just as well as he does, and eventually they’re all coated in blood and guts. Ben doesn’t cover his face as much as the others, per Carlos's suggestion, to avoid getting walker blood in his wound.

Nick lets out a worried groan. Ben sees Luke elbow him before telling him, "Keep it together. You don’t hear the kids whining, do you?"

"Can you blame him, though?" Ben says when Nick lowers his head. "Just… just look at that."

The horde in front of them moves closer, though some veer off toward their left, heading toward the sound of gunfire. Bonnie wonders aloud if it’s Tavia, but no one can say.

He feels small fingers slide in between his, sticky with blood. He looks down to Clementine, who stares straight ahead, hatchet clenched tight in her other fist. "We're okay. We’ll move together."

Carlos walks Sarah up to Clementine's side, hands on her shoulders. Afterwards, he places himself in front of her, and she grabs the back of his shirt in her hands.

Jane begins taking the first steps toward the horde, coaching the others on how to handle themselves as they move forward.  _ Act like you belong, and you will belong. Walk, don’t -  _

"What the  _ actual _ fuck is going on here?" Ben whirls at the sound of Troy’s voice, and everyone else does the same. All except Jane, who keeps one eye on the horde. As Troy takes in the sight of everyone, Ben not only notices the gun in his hands, but the crossbow slung over his shoulder. Troy’s eyes finally stop at Kenny. "You fucker. You’re the piece of shit who did that to Bill back there, aren't you?" Troy raises his gun. "He doesn’t even have a  _ face  _ anymore!"

Ben cringes and Sarita yells for Kenny to move and Bonnie and Luke yell at Troy to drop his gun, and even though Jane hisses for them to keep it down, there’s nothing else anyone can do.

Ben closes his eyes at the sound of a gunshot, but instead of hearing the worst, he hears Troy cry out. His gun clatters to the ground next to him. Walter is the one who walks up to him, pistol ready in his hand, and aims it right at Troy’s head.

"For Matthew," he says, and fires.

Troy drops to his knees, writhing in pain, red blooming across his jeans at the knee where the bullet went straight through. Luke crosses back over to him and takes his gun; Nick reclaims Pete's crossbow.

Ben only notices how close the walkers are when one of them passes right by him. It doesn’t even glance his way as it, and the others that pass by, head toward Troy. Left without a weapon, Troy attempts to climb back up into the storeroom, but with his wounded wrist and knee, he falls back to the ground.

Walter walks past Ben, not even sparing a look behind him. Ben finally turns and begins following Carlos and Sarah into the horde when Troy’s whimpers of pain turn to blood curdling screams.


	28. Amid the Ruins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 4 months later our heroes finally make it to Parker's Run.
> 
> (i'm a big jerk i'm sorry)

Blood rushing in his ears. One foot in front of the other. Hands clutched close to his chest as he follows Clementine's hat as she bobs and walks around the dead. Occasionally someone will whisper. Will call out and the rest of them will make some groan or noise to reassure the others. Not enough to draw attention of the walkers, but enough to remind the others that everyone is alive.

Troy has entirely stopped screaming, by now.

And Sarah's breathing has gotten louder. Ben watches Sarah's shoulders draw up around her neck. She starts falling further behind her father, and Carlos turns over his shoulder and attempts to reach out to her.

A walker passes between them, and when it runs into Carlos's arm, it glances at him. Carlos continues walking, slower, eyes still on Sarah stopped behind the walker that still hasn’t moved.

_Help her_ , he mouths to Ben and Clementine. "Get Sarah," someone else whispers in the crowd.

Clementine inches toward her, and eventually the walker continues moving. Carlos turns completely around and makes his way toward his daughter, and that’s where he stops.

Ben jerks forward the moment the bullet hits. Blood sputters out of Carlos's neck like the words he tries to say as he stumbles backward. The hand he puts to his neck can’t stem the flow of blood, and Ben can’t make his legs move to help him, not even when the first walker grabs Carlos's arm and sinks its teeth into it.

They catch each other’s eye for all of one second before another walker fully pulls Carlos to the ground.

_Sar -_ the last bit of life he has in him fades away to a short cry of pain and then nothing, like the man knows his daughter is watching and even in his dying throes refuses to make her worry.

_God_ , Ben's mind whirls.  _Sarah_.

The world comes alive with sound, anguished screams to his left and the sound of gunfire to his right. Walkers swarming toward the fresh meal just in front of them, closing in around the three left behind.

"Both of you need to  _run_!" Ben hisses to Clementine, and he puts himself between the girls and the walkers at their backs. He hears Clementine say something to Sarah, and, soon after, a blur of blue knocks him forward as it scrambles out of the horde.

It isn’t until he looks over his shoulder and sees only Clementine that he realizes Sarah just took off  _alone_. Ben quickly shoves away a walker that would have grabbed Clementine from behind, just as she cuts down a walker in front of her.

Sarita, Bonnie, and Kenny appear, guns and crowbar in hand.

"Are you okay?" Sarita asks them, just as Kenny asks, "What happened?"

In some scramble of  _he got shot_  and  _Sarah ran off_  and  _God there was so much_ blood, the three of them make out what happened, but Sarah is still nowhere to be seen or even heard. "The others?" Ben croaks out.

"Alvin and Mike are with Rebecca," Bonnie says. Some of the walkers continue past their new group, but Bonnie never lowers her weapon. "I think I heard Luke say he was going after Sarah. Nick probably followed after him."

"What about Walter and Jane?" Clementine looks around, and Ben follows her gaze and finds neither of them.

They get their answer soon after; a short cry and they’re moving as quickly through the herd as they can, only to find a walker already gnawing on Walter's wrist. His gun lies on the ground, but between the walker already on him and the others closing in, there’s nothing he can do. Bonnie raises her gun, but Kenny presses forward and drives the end of the crowbar into the walker’s skull.

It falls, and Kenny drops to his knees with it, and that’s when they see Jane with her back to the whole ordeal. When she turns her head, she looks annoyed.

"You're going to get the rest of us killed," she hisses. "He's  _dead_ , what are you doing?" she addresses Kenny and looks toward Walter nursing his arm. "Just  _leave_ him."

"Shut up," Kenny growls, and though Jane glares she doesn't continue.

At least, until they take a few more steps, and Kenny puts himself in front of the group and the others behind him. "At least cut off his arm if you want to save him." She looks toward Clementine and her hatchet. "You could use that."

Clementine holds the hatchet to her chest and looks up at Walter. He nods, but when Clementine moves toward him, hatchet at the ready, Jane stops them. "Wait, are you crazy? Not  _here_. They’ll smell the blood."

"When we leave this place, then," Sarita says, gravely, with a lilt of optimism.

The group continues, and Walter clamps his hand to his wrist to staunch the flow of blood and thus the walkers’ attraction to them. Ben shies closer to the group when one walker gets too close to him, and Sarita places a comforting hand on his shoulder in response.

When they finally make it out of the herd, Ben takes a deep breath and chokes when he remembers who they left behind. "We - we didn’t even," he begins, and even Kenny looks back at him. "We didn’t even make sure he didn’t  _turn_. God, he could - " he puts one hand over his good eye, and again Sarita places her hand on his shoulder to guide him " - he could be one of  _them_  right now. He could be a walker and - and…  _Sarah_."

Sarita coaxes him into even breaths, slow and steady, calming him at intervals when it seems like he might just break down again. "Sarah was yelling for her dad," Clementine says, voice uneven. "I tried to get her to calm down and follow me but she just ran."

"You two did what you could," Bonnie says soothingly.

"You could have died," Jane mumbles, but with her arms crossed and a scowl on her face, they aren't sure if she's sympathizing or accusing Sarah and Carlos for it.

No one comments, other than Bonnie mentioning they’re getting close to Parker’s Run, and a place they can treat Walter. She apologizes to Ben, as if he’d be disappointed the medical supplies will be going to Walter instead of him. He shakes his head.

Almost appropriately, the place they end up in is in ruins, but they couldn’t have reached it a moment sooner. Walter already looks paler and sighs in relief when he sits on the edge of a broken fountain. Ben reads the plaque just under it:

_Fallen, but not forsaken_.

He thinks of Carlos, Reggie, Matthew, and Pete, of everyone else, and he can’t agree.

"Walter," Clementine says, voice small, hatchet shaking in her trembling hands, "are you going to be okay?"

He smiles at her, and Ben shudders. "I don’t need this arm, anyway," he says lightly. He tries to shake it, but it barely moves, and Ben knows he’s probably already lost feeling in it. But still, Walter gives her this half-smile, as if Clementine is still an eleven year old that hasn’t seen worse.

"We'll take it off and you'll be fine," Kenny tells him resolutely, and if words held any power anymore, Walter would be healed by just that. The man's smile never falters, but he can't meet Kenny's eye when he looks away from Clementine.

"Not in front of the kids."

Bonnie waves Ben and Clementine over, at that. She and Jane stand away from the rest of them, in one of the solid corners of the ruins. Behind them hangs a small map of the site, and Ben thinks it might be useful.

"I don't know if you can see them," she begins, looking just over their shoulders. Ben expects walkers, but when he turns he sees three figures emerge from the trees. "I think that's Rebecca with Alvin and Mike. And that leaves Luke, Sarah, and Nick." Clementine and Ben nod. "Look, Sarah - what she saw isn't going to be easy on her. And if the three of them don't come back soon - "

"We can go get them," Jane offers easily. She stands and stares at Bonnie like it's the most obvious suggestion in the world. Bonnie, probably just as surprised as Ben considering Jane's earlier response, hesitates, but ultimately agrees. Someone has to go get them, after all, and Bonnie is going to stay behind to help with patching Walter up. "We'll be back soon," she says, motioning for them to follow.

Clementine offers her hatchet to Bonnie, who takes one look at the blood splattered weapon, to Walter, and back. "Wouldn't want you to head out without a weapon," Bonnie says, voice light. Jane exhales sharply. Ben's shoulders slump even as he places a hand on Clementine's back and leads her into following Jane.

"Where are the others?" Rebecca asks when they pass by, but Ben stares at the ground. "Carlos?" she tries, small bits of hope creeping in to the question. Ben's silence snuffs them out.

The last they hear is Rebecca cry, "He was supposed to be here," before Jane urges them forward.


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i apologize for the delay; between graduation and finding a job (and working) and fandom jumping, the time between updates is just a lot.

It isn’t until the ruins are only a speck behind them, hidden behind a growing mass of trees that Ben realizes they barely know where they’re going.

“They took off that way,” Ben had said when they entered the forest, voice loud to fight the lump in his throat and Rebecca’s fading sobs.

But each  _that way_  is forest and more forest, and any wrong turn could send them right back into the horde. He checks over his shoulder occasionally, listening for every odd snap of branches, any rustle of leaves that isn’t them. Every time he’s greeted instead by Jane and Clementine holding quiet conversation.

Every forest looks the same, to him, at this point. The forest where Travis died, the forest where he, Christa, Omid, and Clementine got separated. The one where Pete died. Ben sighs and keeps his gaze forward, looking for any sign of their friends.

“We might not even find them out here,” Jane says. “Or at all.”

“But we have to try,” Clementine replies, voice low. “They would do the same for us.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Ben stops when the only pair of footsteps he hears are his own and backtracks to the two. Already his head is beginning to throb.

“Look, Walter’s bitten. You know that means he isn't going to last much longer. I’ll be surprised if he's still kicking by the time we make it back to camp.” Clementine's face falls, but she catches herself and steels her expression into a frown.

“You shouldn't say things like that,” Ben tells her.

“Why, because it's true? He’s gonna die, and you better get used to that fact, starting now. You weren't awake to see it, but your group is falling apart. And Kenny? He’s going to be the first one to lose it.”

Ben bites back the retort on his tongue, turning on his heel instead. He hears someone begin falling into step behind him, and, at Jane’s groan, he figures it was clementine.

“I think she's right,” Clementine begins softly. “About Walter.”

Ben closes his eye as he sighs, and it only makes his other eye begin to itch.  _I know_ , he wants to say. They had been too late in cutting Lee’s arm off in savannah, and by the way Walter looked before they left… they’re too late now. He settles on, “We should hurry back to them, then. We’ll find Sarah and the others and hurry back,” to which Clementine nods.

The trees finally begin to thin out, though the tension between the three of them remains as thick and heavy as before. When the forest gives way to the gating of a small trailer park, Jane pushes ahead, moving toward a pair of corpses just outside the gate.

“It’s not your friends,” she says. “So you should be happy about that. Clem, give me a hand.” Jane gestures toward the other body before she begins rifling through the pockets of the corpse in front of her.

“Shouldn’t we be looking for them?” Clementine asks, though she drops to her knees next to the body opposite Jane.

Ben can see her biting back a comment, especially when she looks up at him and glares. “Maybe we’ll find something that can help us.” Jane looks the bodies over and shrugs. “We need to get her a new jacket,” she says to Ben. “Walkers can bite right through that rainbow marshmallow.” As much as he hates to, Ben agrees with her. “My sister used to have this nice leather jacket. If she were still around - well.”

He frowns, at that, ignoring the gnawing feeling in his chest. He drowns it out by helping the two of them scavenge, pushing another corpse over so he can check its pockets. With a heave, the corpse flops over, but it’s the soft crunch of glass under his knee that catches his attention.

“Clementine,” he hisses, picking up the half-shattered glasses.

“They’re Sarah’s,” she whispers. Carefully, she pockets them, red frames poking out at awkward angles through her coat.

“Huh,” Jane breathes. “Your friends must be around here somewhere, then.”

Ben and Clementine jump to their feet and begin walking along the fence, looking for a way to enter. A cut in the green tarp laced through the fence offers them a small glimpse into the trailer park but, aside from a group of walkers, they see no sign of Sarah, Nick, or Luke. They continue walking, with Jane occasionally whispering for them to slow down.

The pair only stop when they round the corner of the fencing to find a large hole and a walker hanging off of it. Thankfully, with its limbs tangled in the fencing, it isn’t able to do much more than swat at the three of them as Clementine hacks at its head, killing it.

“I think that thing's getting a little dull,” Jane comments as she pulls something out of her back pocket. “Try this.” She places a screwdriver in Clementine's hand, and Ben takes the hatchet for himself.

Ben scans the small bit of the trailer park he can see, but there isn’t much. Empty cars, a broken down playground, and idle walkers on the other side of the park that are no more than swaying silhouettes in the distance.

Clementine’s gasp and Jane’s grunt cause him to whirl back around. A walker grapples with Jane, pulling her arm back to bite it, and she fights to keep it away. Clementine brushes past him and begins to circle around Jane, screwdriver poised to stab, but something stops her.

Jane jerks to her left, pulled along with the walker as it crashes hard against the chain-link fence. The metal rattles each time the walker falls against it, and ben can barely see the object bludgeoning its head. Jane stumbles forward and immediately begins checking her arm for bites.

But Ben looks up from the walker and the splattered gore of its skull.

“Holy  _shit_.”


	30. Chapter 30

“You guys okay?” Nick asks, breathing heavily. His grip on Pete’s crossbow has long since turned his knuckles white, stark in contrast to the rotted blood coating the edge of the crossbow.

Relief floods through Ben until he’s lightheaded with it - though that might just be his adrenaline fading and his headache coming back in full force. Clementine beats him to a welcome, throwing her arms around Nick’s torso. 

Jane grunts as she pulls her own arm out of the walker’s grip. Once she frees herself, she looks around. Ben does the same, and they share a small nod, noting the lack of walkers, even with the noise from the rattling fence.

“Where are Luke and the kid?” She cranes her neck around Nick, only to look back at him, eyes narrowed.

“They’re trapped in a trailer on the other side of the park. We couldn’t - couldn’t get Sarah to move, not after what she saw. I would have stayed with her but Luke’s ribs are fucked thanks to Carver.” He looks down at Clementine, then to Ben. ”I need your help getting them out of there.”

They follow Nick back around the trailer park. Further toward the back are more barricades, piles of sandbags, plywood, and scrap. Nick swears as he leads them through another hole in the fence to the outer ring of the barricade.

Walkers amble across the park, some moving their way, but all drawn toward one home in particular. Even the rhythmic banging of fists can’t drown out Sarah’s screams.

“I set a car horn off on the far side,” Nick says warily. “They came back this fast?” His grip on the crossbow wavers, hands falling to his sides.

“Wasn’t loud enough.” Jane glances around, letting out a small  _aha!_  as she rounds the corner of another mobile home. ”Another car, and - ” She presses her palm against the horn, blaring loud and long. The walkers turn their attention toward her until she stops. “That’ll work.”

“They barely paid attention,” Clementine tells her. Ben can see her fist closing around the glasses poking out of her pocket. “We need to make it last longer.” She peeks over the barricade, standing on the tips of her toes to see over it.

“Someone could stay on the horn,” Ben suggests. ”Draw the walkers away from the others.”

“And then what, let them get surrounded? Good plan.” Jane gestures toward Nick’s crossbow. “Got any bolts in that thing?”

“Troy didn’t  _have_  any.”

“Then it’s dead weight,” she says, heading back toward the fence.

Nick stares at the crossbow in his hands. Clementine follows jane.

“It’s still a good weapon,” Ben says, watching Clementine disappear around a corner. He raises his fists, swings them down hard in the air. His eye tingles. “You got that walker back there, right? Um, thanks for that, by the way.”

Nick shrugs in response, rubbing at his shoulder. ”Right.”

“Little help over here?” Jane calls. She and Clementine round the corner. Clementine drags a walker body by its arms while Jane carries its legs.

A walker on the other side of the barricade looks them over once before continuing its banging on the trailer door.

Ben and Nick hurry over, each taking an arm. “Careful,” Jane warns. “Don’t want you to throw up if it comes off.” She nods at the arms.

Ben grimaces. “Thanks for the warning, I guess.”

“Where are we taking this thing?” Nick grunts. The body sways between him and Ben. Blood rubs off on his jeans when its smashed skull drifts toward his leg.

“To the car, obviously.” 

Clementine keeps watch as they settle the walker in the driver’s seat. Inside the trailer, Sarah cries and Luke swears. Nick groans and grinds his teeth together. “I should have stayed with her,” he mumbles. Ben turns to him, but he doesn’t continue.

“Are you done loitering?” Jane asks, one hand on the back of what remains of the walker’s head. ”We need to go in now or it’ll be too late. We’ve wasted enough time out here.”

A walker’s fist hits the door again, and a soft cracking sound is overpowered by a wet crunch and a horn blaring in Ben’s ear. He trails behind the others as they duck into a nearby trailer. Nick knocks a walker out of the way as they head toward the window on the other side of the barricade. Clementine brings up Jane’s screwdriver, piercing the walker’s skull and continuing after Nick. Jane hauls Ben through the open window.

“Luke, it’s me, open the fucking door!”

After climbing through the window, Jane lifts Ben up by the collar of his jacket and pushes him toward Clementine and Nick. Ben runs up to stand by them on the small wooden porch. The horn stops, and all that pierces the silence is Nick’s swearing.

“Shit,  _shit_. It’s - it’s locked, I fucking locked it, I thought - ”

“Get it open, then!”

“Clem, help jane,” Ben says. Nick rattles the door handle and shoves his shoulder against the door. “We’ll open the door.”

“Hurry, okay?” She stands next to Jane, screwdriver in hand as the walkers make their way back over.

“Nick, let’s - ” Nick slams his shoulder into the door again. The wood bends, but holds. “Why don’t we - ”

“I thought I was fucking helping - ”

Ben pulls him away from the door. A headache prickles at the back of his neck. “On three we’ll kick, okay?”

“Kick on  _two_ ,” Jane suggests.

“Ready?”

“Fine.” Nick leans Pete’s crossbow against the railing.

“One.” Ben stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Nick.

“ _Ben_  - ”

“Two - ”

The door gives.


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I made a terribly egregious plot error here, but I hope I fixed/covered it enough that it isn't too jarring. It isn't important to the rest of the story, but it's sort of important here.
> 
> I'm not sure if I've stated this officially, but I'm going to try to update this at least once a month. We'll see how that goes.

Nick helps Ben to his feet as Jane and Clementine push their way into the trailer. Nick quickly grabs the crossbow and moves out of the way as the girls push a dresser in front of the splintered door. Sarah yelps when the dresser tips onto its side and slams against the floor. The steady thumping against the door tells them their barricade won’t last long.

“Who's there?” comes Luke's voice from the back room. He slowly opens the door, machete poised in his hand until he recognizes them. "Oh, thank god.”

“Thank Nick” goes ignored.

“You’re safe,” Clementine breathes.

“Yeah. For now, at least,” he adds grimly. He looks to Nick. "She won’t listen to me. I can’t-I can’t get her to move, and with my ribs fucked I can’t carry her.”

Nick sighs and removes his hat, heading toward the back room. "You did what you could,” Jane says.

Luke spares Nick a final look. "Right.”

“We could hear you shouting from outside.” Ben scowls. "She just lost her dad, remember?”

“We’ve all lost people,” Jane says, but Ben ignores her.

“What was I supposed to do? She won’t  _listen_  to me, and any time I got close she screamed, and then the walkers showed up - ”

Ben shakes his head. Luke lets out a frustrated exhale. Jane looks between them before heading back to the door.

“You shouldn’t be rough with her,” Ben mumbles, and is surprised to hear Luke's footsteps follow behind him as he heads to the back.

Sarah sits curled into herself as much as she can, legs tucked up under her chin with her arms wrapped around them. But she’s wearing her glasses again, the lens in one eye cracked like a spider web.

“We’re friends, Sarah. We’re going to help each other get through this,” Clementine says.

Sarah looks up when Ben enters the room, and he gives her his most encouraging smile. Her expression never changes, and she stares at her feet, instead.

“My friend Lee, he… he died to keep me safe. And I was so scared.”

She had been in that field, covered in blood, armed with only a pistol. When he, Omid, and Christa found her, her hands had been shaking so much. A lump catches in his throat.

“But you’re still here,” Sarah says, lifting her head again to look up at Clementine.

“He taught me how to survive and stay strong, even when I’m scared. Because he wanted me to live.” Her voice wavers. “And your dad… he protected you because he wanted you to live.”

Sarah's hands reach up to grip her glasses, her hold strong enough to rattle the frame. She takes a deep breath -

A walker pounds against the window behind Clementine.

Sarah jumps, pulling her legs closer to herself and away from Clementine’s outstretched hand.

Jane leans in the doorway, shouting, "We’re surrounded,” before heading back toward the door. Ben follows Luke out of the room and they both scramble forward, toward Jane and the top of the door punching inward, nearly collapsing in even with her shoulder braced against it. ”This place isn’t gonna last long, and we’re not getting out this way.”

“The skylight,” Ben supplies. "In the room with Sarah.”

Jane nods, bracing harder against the door. "Then go.”

Luke does, but Ben hesitates when the door thrusts forward. A walker sticks its arm in the opening, but Jane quickly finds its head and finishes it in one swift motion. The walker falls, the door once more rests against its frame, and Jane angrily waves him off.

He walks in on Clementine falling to the floor with a yelp and Luke bracing an arm against his chest. "My ribs,” he wheezes. "Fucking Carver.” Luke looks over to Sarah, but Nick has her attention, her hands closing around his hat.

“Here, Clem.” Ben cups his hands and kneels. From the other room, Jane swears loudly. Ben and Clementine share two looks, one at each other and the other at Sarah, before nodding. Adrenaline carrying along the follow through, he manages to hoist Clementine up and through the skylight.

His side aches, catching him off guard. Clementine looks down at them from the skylight. "I can’t do that again,” he says, punctuated by a heavy sigh.

Suddenly, Nick stands, Sarah's hand in his with Nick’s hat firmly on her head. "I’m going to lift you up, all right? You’ll be safe with Clementine.” Sarah nods, hands shaking at her sides. Nick kneels in front of her and she steps up on his leg, up to his shoulders. Nick wraps his hands around her ankles as she reaches for clementine, but she swings backward -

And Ben is there, guiding the both of them toward Clementine, who pulls Sarah up to the roof.

“What about you guys?” she calls over.

“We need you over here!” Luke yells next, and Ben realizes he never saw him leave.

In the living area, Jane keeps the walkers at bay as they trickle in the open door. Luke pushes a dresser toward them, occasionally swinging his machete at a walker that slips past Jane and at him. Nick takes the other end of the dresser, pulling it toward the back room. Ben swings his hatchet at any of the walkers that make it past Jane.

Which is a lot, and, not fully adjusted to one eye, he misses more often than not. Jane manages to knock a walker that tried to flank him to the ground. Somehow, the four of them make it to the back room once again, even with Ben's faulty aim. Jane barely has any strength to hold the door closed.

“You first,” Nick says to Luke, who nods. With a painful groan, he pulls himself up to the roof, and turns around just as Ben climbs up. Luke pulls him the last few inches, and the two of them stare down at Jane and Nick.

Ben watches as Jane looks from the door to Nick and swears again, pushing away from the door. Nick lifts her, and with Ben and Luke pulling her up (with another wheeze from Luke), she’s on the roof in half the time.

Ben leans over, through the skylight, arm outstretched. "I've got you.”

Nick jumps up, swinging away from a walker clawing at his ankle. But it learns, quickly, and with Nick swinging from Ben's arm, the walkers begin to reach upward, grabbing at his legs to pull him down to them.

His side might tear open again.  _That_  is what goes through his mind, the image of his torso opening up, red spilling across the roof. It burns every time he tugs upward, when Nick scrambles for the edge of the skylight and misses, dragging them down an inch.

A ground out  _fuck_  leaves him as he pulls once more, finding more force behind it than last time. Jane's arms hook around his torso, pulling with him, and finally Nick climbs through the skylight.

Luke closes the hatch, and they pause for the moment, all of them breathing heavily. Sarah's hand closes around one of Clementine’s arms, and she doesn’t look to be letting go any time soon.

Ben bites back a hiss, holding a hand to his side.

But when Nick shifts next to the kids, Ben swears, there, just above Nick’s ankle, is a splash of red.


	32. Chapter 32

The walk back is almost uneventful in comparison to the frantic scrambling from only minutes ago. After hopping the fence on the other side of the trailer, they kept to a narrow path Jane said would lead them back to the others. Ben hadn’t argued.

Not then.

Sarah, Clementine, and Nick keep to the back, Luke and Jane whisper between themselves up front, and Ben positions himself between the two groups. No one has mentioned or noticed the wound on Nick’s ankle. Then again, the kids are still recovering from the scene in the trailer, holding hands in the silence, and Ben sort of doubts Luke would notice anything at the moment unless Jane pointed it out to him.

So it’s up to Ben to sneak glances over his shoulder at Nick every five minutes, wondering if he should mention the injury (not bite,  _not_  bite) for everyone’s sake.

Nick takes it out of his hands with a grumbled, “The fuck is your problem?” Ben’s eyes immediately go to Nick’s ankle, and it isn’t difficult for him to tell what the issue is. “It’s not a bite.”

Clementine’s head shoots up at that, and maybe it’s the exhaustion left in the wake of adrenaline that makes Ben want to laugh at the distinct parallel. It would be funnier, probably, if everything else wasn’t so dire. If they hadn’t almost died and Walter was safe and definitely alive.

Instead, Ben frowns. “I just want to make sure you’re all right, Nick.”

He almost runs into Jane when she stops. “And why wouldn’t he be all right?” There are probably a lot of reasons why  _any_  of them aren’t all right, but Ben’s pretty sure Jane doesn’t care about that. She glares at Ben. “What exactly is going on?”

Luke stays silent with his worried frown.

“It’s just a fucking scratch, okay?” Nick cuts in. “One of them got a swipe in before I got pulled up. It doesn’t matter.”

“Until you turn.” Jane steps around Ben, toward Nick. Ben angles himself between them, ready to cut in. “It doesn’t matter until you’re sinking your teeth into one of the kids.”

“You were ready to leave Sarah back there. You didn’t even care.”

“That doesn’t mean you aren’t a danger now.” Jane’s hand inches toward her screwdriver, but it’s Luke stepping between the two of them that stops her.

“Look, we aren’t doing this here,” Luke says, sounding much like the leader he had been at the cabin. “But, Nick, man, if even some blood got in – ”

Nick doesn’t stick around to let him finish. He presses on through the forest, heading in the direction they were going. Sarah is the first to follow, then, with a sigh and a brief look at Clementine, Ben is the second.

He supposes Nick’s lucky it’s a straight shot back to the ruins. Then he wouldn’t have to look back to see his best friend hesitate to go after him. Or it was simply coincidence, and Nick wouldn’t have stopped unless Sarah or Ben called out to him.

-

Ben’s trio is the first to see the ruins in the distance, and from afar he can see Parker’s Run for what it is. He’s not exactly sure if it’s in crumbling ruins for effect, or if the past couple years - and the passing walkers - have done that much damage.

When they get closer, Rebecca spots them first and looks worried for a moment before she notices the rest of their group a short distance behind the others. She looks from Nick, who crosses his arms and leans against one of the upright walls, to Ben, who shakes his head. The motion only serves to flare up his headache, so he goes to Bonnie as Sarah sits on a bench somewhere between Nick and Rebecca.

Even now with everyone back, Bonnie still looks upset. “I’m glad all of you made it back,” she says. It takes her a moment to rummage through her backpack for the pain pills and a bottle of water. It’s another few minutes before the pills really kick in, and he can’t help but sigh at the relief that floods in over the receding pain.

Bonnie exhales a short laugh. “Careful. There ain’t a lot of those to go around, and – ” They both look at Rebecca. Ben nods.

He’ll just have to stop getting in the middle of arguments with Luke and Nick, then. When he says as much to Bonnie, she rolls her eyes. “Those two are always goin’ at it for  _somethin’_. What happened this time?”

“Nick got injured when we were escaping.” _Not_ bitten. He continues, “We were just worried if it was... you know.” Nick looks over at the two of them, frowning when he realizes they’ve been staring. “He says it isn’t.”

“I believe him,” Bonnie says immediately. “Take a look at it, if he’ll let you. But Nick doesn’t seem like the kinda guy to keep somethin’ like that to himself, you know?”

Ben thinks back to Nick’s mom and, again, to the scuffle when it was him and everyone else that thought Clementine was bitten. “You’re right.”

Bonnie shrugs. “We’ll work it out when Kenny and Sarita make it back.” She grimaces after Ben makes a quick scan of the area, realizing, for the first time, that Kenny and Sarita haven’t been there. And Bonnie didn’t mention Walter. “Walter got sick fast. Kenny suggested cutting off the arm, but Walter told us to save the medicine for Rebecca.” Something in her tone makes him wonder if that was ever of any debate.

“And they haven’t come back yet.”

“There was a gunshot a while ago. But, no, nothing since.”

Luke settles against the base of the statue with a groan, holding on to his ribs with one hand as he places his machete next to him with the other. He sits away from Nick, but still pointedly facing him, and Ben can’t tell if Luke is watching over Nick or watching  _out_  for him.

Especially as close to Sarah, and now Clementine, as she settles next to the other girl, as Nick is.

Jane prowls the area, checking the site maps and expanses of field around them. Mike and Alvin get roped into keeping watch on the immediate perimeter, though the latter looks extremely reluctant to leave Rebecca’s side.

Ben takes up vigil next to Rebecca in Alvin’s stead, and it seems to calm him if only a little, leaving bonnie to watch the direction where Kenny and Sarita had apparently left with Walter.

And so, they wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the last chapter that i'm writing directly into tumblr, so i apologize if i missed any capitalization. this monster is also officially over 100 pages in word, making it the largest (and longest) fic i've kept up with. yay.
> 
> happy late thanksgiving!


	33. Chapter 33

Ben opens his eyes to the world on its side and the distant sounds of raised voices. He sits up immediately, hand reaching for his hatchet before Rebecca briefly places a hand on his shoulder.

“You fell asleep,” she says as Ben rubs at his eyes. “I’m only surprised you didn’t wake up earlier with those two yelling.” She sighs. “At least they moved away from the kids.”

He looks over to Sarah, sprawled out on the bench, a frown carved on her face even as she barely stirs. Clementine still sits next to her, and even though she watches Luke and Nick in the distance, her head bobs forward as she dozes in place.

Jane is… nowhere to be seen.

“Just _trust_ me.”

“Nick, this isn’t about trust – ”

“You, Bonnie, and Rebecca looked at it.” Nick gestures toward his leg, and Ben can see a bit of bandage peeking through the now dark brown fabric of Nick’s jeans. “I’m not sick. I’m not going to turn into one of those things – ”

“ – _yet_.”

Luke’s fingers twitch at his side, and Nick’s curl into fists.

“It only took an hour or so for Lee’s bite to really set in. Even with his arm gone,” Ben says dully. Clementine’s head hangs again, but it isn’t the slow bob of her falling asleep. “But it didn’t take that long for the bite they saw.”

“It’s different for a lot of people,” Rebecca says.

“Maybe he’s immune,” Clementine chimes in slowly. It startles a laugh out of Rebecca, bringing the distant argument to a halt and waking Sarah from her nap.

Rebecca places a hand on her stomach, smiling. “I think she agrees with you.”

“Agrees with what?” Nick and Luke ask at the same time, one cautious and the other curious.

“That you boys need to stop arguing. It’s not helpin’ anybody.”

“And we could hear you across the fucking field.” The others turn toward one of the many sections of collapsed wall to see Kenny walking toward them, Sarita just behind him. Alvin and Mike bring up the rear, and even Jane appears from around a corner, watching the rest of them like a hawk. Or some sort of scavenger hovering around the dead.

And Ben’s seen that look on Kenny’s face before, from years ago, his wife and son’s body left behind in a quiet clearing, the lingering echoes of two gunshots hanging over them. Yet Sarita is the one with the gun in her hand. Her eyes look puffy and red, even from a distance.

Walter is nowhere to be seen.

Bonnie and Rebecca figure it out – or had it figured out – long before he does, and are at Sarita’s side in a moment. Kenny shrugs off whatever condolences and platitudes they offer, much more gracefully than he would have in the past. He doesn’t snap at them, at least. He redirects his anger instead, marching toward Kenny and Luke, and Ben rises to meet the three of them. Clementine joins them after urging Sarah toward the other women.

“If you two assholes are about to tell me you’re arguing over a girl – ” Kenny begins, just as Luke spares a look toward Jane.

Luke immediately stiffens, puffs himself up, and briefly Ben is reminded of a cat when it’s backed into a corner. Nick is well on his way to the same look, bracing himself as Luke explains. “We have to decide what to do. He may not be bit – ” Luke’s shoulders sag. “ – but what if he’s infected?”

Kenny, surprisingly, only sighs. “So kill him, then.”

Ben blanches. _Kill him_ from a man that thought to plead for his son’s life, even though he knew Duck was bit; who thought Lee could pull through his own bite; who refused to let Ben die in an alley when it was almost too obvious Ben would die. Who lived on for the next two years, long enough for them to be reunited.

There’s a brief cacophony of _wait a minute, what the fuck?, Kenny, no,_ and _I’m not gonna_ , before he speaks again. “No.” His voice is firm, but Ben can feel the rising storm. Clementine shifts next to him. “I’m not fucking doing this again today, got it? You want to be the leader? You want him dead?  You kill him yourself.” With that, he turns on his heel, walks away, and wraps an arm around Sarita once he reaches her.

The fight drains out of Luke in an instant. He only mutters, “shit,” before heading toward Jane, but when she shakes her head, he changes direction to sit on a bench instead.

Nick shoots the elephant in the room with a blunt, “Walter’s dead.”

He wasn’t there, Ben realizes. He and Luke had run off after Sarah before the incident.

“He saved Jane from a walker,” Clementine explains in the silence. “He didn’t look so good when we left.” They never even got to say goodbye. She sniffles. “He and Matthew were supposed to teach me and Sarah. We were supposed to go to school again – ”

Ben kneels and she tucks herself up under his chin, angling herself away from the dried blood on his jacket. She hasn’t cried in so long. Not since after that first night Christa lost her baby and he heard her muffling her sniffles against a ratty pillow.

“Hey, uh, Clem,” Nick begins haltingly, awkwardly. “Uh,” he clears his throat, “he’s, you know, they’re together now. Wherever they are. They don’t have to go through this anymore.”

“They’re with my parents,” she agrees. “And Lee, and Carlos.” She looks to him, and they both silently add, _and Duck, Katjaa, Carley, Doug, and Mike_. “You’re not going to turn into one of them, right?” It’s a fierce warning and hopeful wish in one, and Ben’s heart sinks when Nick lowers his head.

“I don’t think so.”

It’s enough, for the moment, and soon after Clementine pulls herself together in a way an eleven-year-old shouldn’t have to. The others have gathered in an attempt at a circle with Sarita, Rebecca, and Alvin hanging back. Ben, Nick, and Clementine join the group in the middle of their discussion.

“We can’t stay out in the open like this,” Bonnie says. “We have to find a place for Rebecca to have the baby, and it’s gettin’ cold. We’ll need supplies for that.”

“All right. We’ll have a few keep watch and the others will have to search the area,” Kenny continues. “We keep in groups. No one goes alone out there.”

“Right.” Luke steps up. “I’ll go with J – ”

“You and Nick keep watch on the perimeter,” Kenny cuts him off. Luke frowns but doesn’t argue, even when Kenny neglects to give orders to the rest of them. Bonnie looks between the two before slowly picking back up.

“Mike said he and Alvin found an old building across the way. He and I’ll go there.”

“I’ll go with you,” Ben offers, and she nods.

“There’s an old gift shop out that way.” Jane gestures down a path. “Clem and I will search the place.” Clementine moves over to Jane’s side.

Kenny looks toward the others gathered around Rebecca. “Alvin and I will stay here, then. You all know what you’re looking for?”

Bonnie repeats, “water, blankets, and medicine,” for Ben, Clementine, and Nick. “And anything else y’all can find. Wouldn’t say no to a hot meal.” When she grins, it pulls a few more out of the crowd.

“Be careful out there,” Mike tells them as they separate into their groups. “Come back if anything goes wrong, but don’t bring anything _bad_ back with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trying to stay interested enough to continue updating this, and yet i haven't even hit the scene that made me want to rewrite the season in the first place.
> 
> i sort of want to focus less on rewriting canon stuff and more on where i'm diverging, but at this point i feel like skimming over huge chunks of time would clash with earlier chapters.
> 
> anyway. happy (very) late christmas / holidays, and happy new year.


	34. Chapter 34

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which the author keeps a consistent 5 month update schedule

They find a broken building, rubble scattered across a fake (hopefully) graveyard. Inside, empty display cases, like someone took old relics for sentimental value or improvised weapons. Ben doesn’t think he’d mind a bayonet.

Still, he, Bonnie, and Mike sift through dust and rubble and cracked pieces of history for anything actually useful. There isn’t much, just pointed, tired sighs as lifting junk and flyaway pieces of paper reveal exactly nothing.

“Well, what are the odds?” Bonnie says, on the other side of the room. She ducks down, yanks something out of a corner, and holds it up. An old jacket; not just in age, but  _ actually _ old. A replica. “Rebecca could use this.”

Mike coughs, unsubtly. “We can’t put her in that.”

Ben looks the jacket – coat – over. He thinks back to his old history classes, God, years ago, and – oh. “Well – ”

Bonnie rolls her eyes. “Seriously?”

Mike blinks, shakes his head. Ben follows him to the information booth. Bonnie folds the coat and hangs it over her arm before joining them. Mike tries the door, but the handle just jerks once. “It’s locked.”

Ben peers through the crack under the CLOSED sign painted on the shutters. He places his hands on the counter, puts his face closer, and squints. His heart skips a beat. “There’s – there’s water jugs in there.”

“Think you can find the key?” Mike asks, turning to Bonnie.

She shrugs. “Used up my luck on the coat, I think.”

“Of course. Hey, kid, what’re you – ”

Ben’s already got his arm halfway curled around the window, grasping blindly for the door. He leans forward, pressing his shoulder harder against the shutter just for a little – more – distance –

Something grabs his arm and pulls, hard, slamming his head against the shutter. Bonnie grabs Ben by his shoulders, Mike kicks hard against the locked door, and Ben braces his hand against the counter and shoves himself away.

The low growl he hears shakes the rest of his daze away, and then he’s pushing in earnest. The walker’s vice grip on his forearm doesn’t give, but the door splinters under the force of Mike’s kicks, and Ben nearly falls over with his own final push.

“Someone get this thing!” Mike yells from the booth. Ben pulls out his hatchet, and turns the corner. With one heavy swing against the walker’s head, it stops squirming under Mike’s weight.

Ben sighs heavily, pocketing the hatchet before he drops it. A small part of his jacket sleeve is wet with streaks of dried blood. A jagged cut peeks out from the folds of his sleeve, but his arm is untouched. He shudders, wraps his arms around his torso to stop them from shaking.

“You okay, there?” Bonnie asks.

Ben nods, and Bonnie frowns. They exit the booth, Mike with two water cooler jugs under his arms, and Ben just glad he managed to keep his.

Even carrying the water, Mike doesn’t let his guard down, walking just ahead of Ben and scanning the room a second time. The room hasn’t changed, but every rustle of leaves in the wind could be a walker just outside, waiting, drawn in from the noise. Worst yet, whatever remains of the Howe’s Hardware group, guards hunting them down for revenge.

Ben steps just that much closer to Mike.

A rustle in the far corner draws their attention. Mike slowly places the water on the ground, Bonnie ducks behind a display case, and Ben wants to be anywhere else.

There’s a squeak, a rustle of paper and garbage, and a brown blur that shoots from the corner Bonnie found the Confederate jacket. Mike takes a step toward the disturbance and it freezes in the middle of the room, just before scrambling for cover.

A raccoon.

“That thing’s  _ mine _ ,” Mike growls, and Bonnie finds it in her to laugh softly before circling around opposite him.

Ben obligingly creeps up the center, not quite sure what he’ll do if he  _ does _ catch it. But Mike is grinning and Bonnie is a little breathless with excitement, and Ben feels it hit him, their own little airborne infection, and he grins. They creep closer, flanking the raccoon, and it’s a little like when him and Travis tried to catch a squirrel that one summer, but that only ended up with Travis getting nuts chucked at him whenever he left his house.

They manage to get the raccoon cornered off again, Bonnie on its left, Mike on its right, and Ben blocking the center. Bonnie shifts forward, ready to lunge, but the raccoon dashes away before she can. It dashes between Ben and Mike. Ben jumps, manages to get his arms around it, but it climbs up and out of his hold. Mike barely misses, fingers brushing its fur, but it runs past him and into the graveyard.

When they collect themselves, still covered in dust, they prepare themselves to begin the chase again in the graveyard, but stop at the sight that greets them. Three smaller raccoons gather around the one they were just chasing; three smaller raccoons chirp at their mother before she quickly leads them away.

“I should feel guilty,” Mike mutters, and his stomach growls. “But now I’m even hungrier than I was before.”

Ben laughs softly and rubs the back of his neck. “I almost had it.”

“Yeah,” Mike says around a drawn out sigh.

“It was fun, though,” Bonnie says, still smiling. “We’ll get them next time.” Mike only grumbles again. Bonnie gives his shoulder a reassuring squeeze before they gather the scavenged supplies.

Ben tries not to think about the taste of raccoon or the feeling of his stomach rumbling under his fingers.

Mike picks up the water jugs again, Bonnie at his side, muttering a stream of meaningless reassurances,  _ We’ll find food soon, don’t you worry _ , and  _ You would’a felt horrible for eating that raccoon _ . Ben, a few steps behind them, picks up Mike’s bitter mumbling,  _ I wouldn’t have felt bad at all _ . Bonnie laughs and shakes her head, and Mike sighs again.

Ben thumbs the hole in his jacket sleeve, feeling the unmarred flesh underneath. With a brief thought of Nick, he picks up his pace back to the others.


	35. Chapter 35

Clementine and Jane haven’t returned by the time Ben and the others enter the ruins, and neither have Nick and Luke. Sarita, eyes dark and bruised, speaks softly with Rebecca, occasionally toying with Sarah’s hair. The younger girl sits at Sarita’s feet, back braced against Sarita’s legs, as she draws patterns in the dirt. Rebecca leans heavily against Alvin, their fingers intertwined, with Alvin tapping out seconds against Rebecca’s knuckles.

Kenny stops his pacing when Alvin raises his other hand to wave at them and leaves his path worn in the ground and relieves Mike of one water jug once he reaches them. Up close, Kenny looks as tired and worn as Sarita, but a light shines in his eyes at the sight of the water. He exhales in relief, but there’s a tension that still never leaves his shoulders.

“Is this all you found?”

Bonnie untucks the jacket from her arm, and Kenny nods. Mike’s mouth clicks shit as Kenny takes it and turns away. With a quick shake of her head at Mike, Bonnie heads toward Rebecca and the others, leaving Mike and Ben to follow suit.

Alvin and Mike share a look over the jacket, but Alvin shrugs at Mike’s apologetic frown, and Rebecca doesn’t seem to care. At the short exchange, Ben tries not to think of what Lee would think of the place, the broken pieces of history scavenged - he looks at Rebecca wrapped up in the jacket - or repurposed. But he does, and his thoughts go to Clem and how she’s continuing to hold up, after Walter…

“Hi, Ben,” says Sarah when he joins her on the ground. Her eyes look clearer, more focused than a few hours ago. Sarah’s head moves in a slow bob, following the motions of Sarita’s fingers through her hair.

“Hey.” He adds rays of sunshine to her sun, dirties his nail with little squiggles in the ground.

“You should get a new jacket, too.” She points to the flecks of dried blood and saliva near his elbow.

Ben bends his arm, raises to look, and lowers it, like a bird testing out its wings. Pain radiates from his shoulder from being yanked. If he looks hard enough, he can see the small holes where canines poked and tore holes in the old fabric.

Kenny clears his throat, then stares down at him, and it’s the both of them in that alley, surrounded by walkers, Ben begging, and begging, tears in his eyes.

_ Kenny, please - _

His side aches.

The light in Kenny’s eyes goes out.

“Yeah,” he says, a forced levity to his voice. The others listen in silence. “I think I’ve been wearing this jacket for too long.” His school letters are almost faded, and he still has the hole the metal pole bore into his side. Not to mention the mix of blood, old and new and some not even his, spattered across and soaked into it. He softens his voice like he’s talking to his little sister again, right after he broke his nose. “But I like it, still.”

Sarah stares.  Behind her glasses, one eye goes wide like an owl’s, the other fractured behind a broken lens. They both have messed up eyes now, he wants to say, but her glasses broke after her father died, and his eye was beaten trying to protect his -

He looks to Kenny, then, tries to plea, to say  _ I’m okay, I’m okay _ , but Mike has his attention as he whispers in Kenny’s ear.

Kenny’s fists unfurl.

Once more, there’s that look on his face, same as when they found that boat in Savannah, when everything seemed to fall into place. And then it fades, and Kenny’s back to pacing, and the rest of them are back to waiting. Sarita waves Kenny over, and he takes up post next to her, close enough for her to lean against him and close her eyes. Kenny keeps his eyes to the forest in the distance.

The moment diffused, Sarah blinks at him, again owlishly, then pulls him into drawing with her again. The sun, a house, a dog, and smiling stick figures holding hands.

“Where the fuck are the others?” Kenny grumbles, low enough in an attempt to not let Sarah hear, but she pulls Nick’s hat back on her head anyway.

Sarah draws a small symbol over one figure, the same as the one on Nick’s hat.

On cue, Clementine appears from behind one of the ruin corners. Kenny perks up, and watches as Clem gravitates toward Sarah and Ben on the ground. She wrings her hands together, sighs, and puts her head in her hands.

Ben elbows her softly. “What’s wrong?” he asks, at the same time Kenny’s, “Where’s Jane?”

A pause. “We found medicine. A whole bag of it.” The others sit up straight. Their quickly scavenged stores of medicine were small to begin with. Her pace picks up, “But it was Arvo’s, and he said he needed the medicine for his sister, so I didn’t want to take it, but Jane - ”

“Whoa, hang on.” Kenny kneels, puts a hand on her shoulder. “Take a breath.”

She does.

“Jane took it from Arvo. I told her we shouldn’t and it wasn’t fair, but she said-she said we deserved it more.” She frowns. “He’s just a kid,” Clementine says, with heartbreaking understanding. “I thought she was going to kill him.”

“Kill who?”

Everyone turns and there, silhouetted by a dying sun, shadowed against the forest far behind him, stands Luke, alone.


End file.
